


all of the things i wanna do to you is infinite

by TheDamselfly



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, First Time, Gen, Loneliness, Oral Sex, Parent Tony Stark, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Romance, Self-Esteem Issues, Sharing a Bed, Vaginal Sex, Virgin Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:01:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDamselfly/pseuds/TheDamselfly
Summary: Tony Stark's only child, the heiress to Stark Industries and the whole Stark legacy, was not ready for this horrifyingly massive crush that she's developed on one of her dad's co-workers.***She can both build and shoot a gun with ease, and her cellphone is full of numbers for other horribly rich, famous twenty-somethings. She's as brilliant as her breeding and education suggest, and her home is regularly full of the most ridiculously attractive group of superheroes that she knows.Being in the inner circle isn't all good things, which is hardly unexpected, as superheroes tend to draw attention both good and ill. The main problem, of course, is that Georgia Stark is unbearably head-over-heels for one Captain Steven Rogers, who lives on the floor beneath hers, politely nods his head at her whenever she enters a room, and makes enough pancakes for everyone on Sundays after he comes back from his ungodly-early morning run.





	1. Chapter One

The parcel sits on the kitchen counter, simple brown cardboard, but Georgia tears into it like a heathen the second she lays eyes on it. It's the last arrival in a stream of packages that have been showing up at the Tower over the past three months, and thank god, because she was getting worried that it would never show up.

She digs past the crumbled up newspapers that protect it, and pulls out her latest acquisition.

It's a worn velvet box, deep green and ancient, and she pops it open to look inside.

It's nothing special, really. A plain gold band that looks like it's seen better days, with soft scratches all over, but when she pulls it out and holds it up to the light, she can see the inscription, faint with time and wear but still legible, along the inside of the ring.

She nearly wants to cry.

With careful hands, she tucks the ring back into its box and takes it to her room. There is a box on the floor of her walk-in closet, slowly filling over the past few months, but this is the cherry on top of it all. She tucks the ring in next to the old schoolbooks and two original photographs, still in their antique frames, and a coat that looks too small to have ever once belonged to someone like Captain America.

Georgia Stark is absolutely certain that she's never been simultaneously so proud and so nervously excited in her life.

***

It's been nearly three years since her father was kidnapped by terrorists working for the man she looked up to as an uncle, and Georgia's life has never been the same. Growing up as a billionaire's daughter was unusual enough, to be sure, because certainly not all teenage girls are groomed for the CEO's office from the time they first discover boys. Her father had never bothered to hide the worst parts of his industry from her, and so at sixteen, Georgia got her driver's license and also designed her first prototype gun in the SI labs alongside the brilliant minds that would one day work for _her_.

She was thrown into her father's seat at the head of the boardroom table at the age of nineteen, mourning the loss of her father and struggling to run a global business when she'd only been working on the last year of her Bachelor's degree the week before. Those were, quite possibly, the worst few months of her life.

Thank Thor and the gods, it's been ages since she was able to step away from the boardroom, upon her father's return, who immediately handed over control to Pepper Potts, but Georgia remembers the terror of standing before investors who doubted her ability to keep Stark Industries going.

She'd doubted herself more than they ever had.

But now she has both her Bachelors and Masters degrees firmly in her pocket, and a doctorate at MIT to look forward to. She's twenty-two, the sole inheritor to a Fortune 500 company, and her father regularly straps himself into a metal suit and defeats evil villains and invading aliens.

It's hardly a normal life, but Georgia is fairly certain that no Stark has had a 'normal life' since at least the turn of the last century.

She can both build and shoot a gun with ease, and her cellphone is full of numbers for other horribly rich, famous twenty-somethings. She's as brilliant as her breeding and education suggest, and her home is regularly full of the most ridiculously attractive group of superheroes that she knows.

She's met a lot of superheroes in the past three years.

Being in the inner circle isn't all good things, which is hardly unexpected, as superheroes tend to draw attention both good and ill. The main problem, of course, is that Georgia Stark is unbearably head-over-heels for one Captain Steven Rogers, who lives on the floor beneath hers, politely nods his head at her whenever she enters a room, and makes enough pancakes for everyone on Sundays after he comes back from his ungodly-early morning run.

It's been an interesting challenge, trying to capture the attention of someone who is both six years older _and_ 76 years older than she is, without coming off as 'immoral' or 'forward,' particularly because she doesn't hold many of the traits that society considers typically feminine. She's lousy at baking and prefers to spend her time under a car's hood than in its passenger seat, and she's more likely to have grease under her nails than polish over them. She's seen pictures of Peggy Carter, the woman who loved Captain America during the war, and Georgia has never been as neatly-groomed in all her life.

She buys deep red lipstick anyway.

 She stops wearing it when her father demands to know why she's started dressing up for the bots.

It hardly matters, because for all her carefully-planned small-talk and the red lipstick and the 'accidental' run-ins in the elevator after he goes for a run, Georgia is no closer to finding herself seated across from Steve Rogers on a date. So she's put together one last plan, her Hail Mary pass, before she throws in the towel and deems the entire thing a hopeless case.

Steve's birthday is only four days away, and since flattery and smiles have gotten her nowhere, Georgia is taking a page from her father's book and showing her affection with a ridiculously big-ticket item.

Pepper is in the kitchen when Georgia emerges from her bedroom, perched on a stool and perusing something on her tablet. Pepper isn't her mother, but she was Georgia's most stable female presence when she was growing up, and now that she's dating Tony, she fits into that maternal role more neatly than ever.

"Good morning," Pepper says, glancing up from her work. "I've scheduled us in for tomorrow afternoon for pedicures with Mina." Pepper never fails, despite her schedule, to make Georgia feel included in her life, which often manifests in shopping trips or spa days. Mina does the world's best foot massages.

"Awesome," Georgia says, turning on the kettle for tea and fishing her favourite mug out of the cupboard. "We should spend some time in Malibu before it gets too hot for suntanning," she adds, because Pepper is much fairer than she is and tends to burn up in the heat.

"You're welcome to come with me the next time I head out to the California offices," Pepper promises, and Georgia's favourite thing about her is that she's absolutely good for her word.

She pours the boiling water over her tea bag and toasts the woman she wishes were her real mother. "You've got yourself a deal, boss lady. Is Dad downstairs?"

***

He is, of course, head-deep in his latest suit, classic rock blasting and robots wheeling around him as they fetch tools and try to force culinary-disasters of smoothies upon him. Georgia sips at her tea and perches on the edge of one of the emptier workbenches, content to be surrounded by the chaos and brilliance of her only family.

He comes up for air half an hour later, when her tea is gone and she's poking through his notes to see what he's working on. JARVIS is a pal about letting her in on the projects that aren't top secret, so that she can educate herself on the company that she will be running herself one day. Tony takes her presence in stride, simply pointing her in the direction of the newest material he needs stress-tested for the team uniforms.

If Georgia focuses extra hard on the task, it's certainly not because she wants the captain's next uniform to keep him as safe as she can possibly manage.

They've been working together happily for several hours when the workshop door slides open and the captain lets himself in, two mugs in hand. Her father snaps his goggles up onto his forehead, and Georgia follows suit, giving her hair a subtle pat into place that likely actually does nothing for it, considering she's been running her hands through it in frustration for the past ninety minutes, at least.

"Steve!" Tony calls out. "One of those had better be for me."

He takes one of the mugs without waiting for an answer, and Georgia pretends not to notice how conflicted the captain looks about the other mug in his hand.

"Would you care for some coffee, Miss Stark?" he finally settles on, holding it out towards her. Georgia shakes her head.

"I'm a bit preferential to tea, myself," she says. "I'm sure you brought it for yourself, anyway. Don't let me stop you." She tries to force her mouth into its most dazzling smile, but she's so nervous that she's certain it comes out mostly as a grimace. The captain withdraws his hand, looks down at the mug uncertainly, then brings it to his mouth.

Georgia's eyes can look nowhere else but the length of his throat as his Adam's apple bobs.

"What brings you to our playroom today?" her father asks once he's drained most of his own mug.

"Just a check-in. You said you had something for the uniforms in the works?" the captain says, as if he's unsure if he's allowed to see unfinished prototypes.

Her dad thinks Steve is just great; Georgia doesn't think that he'd withhold anything from him, if he was interested in seeing it.

Idly, she wonders if there's something wrong with her for pursuing the guy who is essentially her father's best friend.

"Yes!" her father exclaims, jumping up from his stool. "Georgia's been testing it all afternoon. So far, so good. Definitely the best one yet."

She ducks her head a bit abashedly, then twists back to stare at the display of information that tells them what needs to be improved on the material. She brings up the relevant numbers as her father mentions them to the captain, but bites her tongue, because she doesn't trust herself not to be completely embarrassing.

Lord knows she's probably going to embarrass herself plenty, on the fourth.

***

Spending two hours in close quarters with the captain and his broad shoulders really can only lead to one place, which is Georgia flat on her back in her bed, knees splayed, vibrating egg tucked against her clit and a fat silicone dildo working its way into her cunt. She holds her breath as she bobs the dildo shallowly, spreading her growing moisture over the length of it until she has it pushed tight against her cervix. It's a good stretch, and the vibrator keeps her body buzzing, but she's missing the heavy weight of a male body between her legs, the chance to simply lay back and take it without having to pump the dildo herself.

Georgia has, frankly, fantasized about Captain America's cock far more often than is probably healthy.

She ramps the speed up on the egg and gets the dildo working as fast as she can, riding out the small orgasm that isn't nearly enough to take the edge off. She stares at the ceiling, panting quietly, and tosses the toys off to the side.

The insides of her thighs are damp, and her body is telling her that's she's feeling much more relaxed now, but it's just not what she's looking for.

***

Georgia is on her way home from the Strand Bookstore, where the East Village meets Greenwich Village, which means she's sitting in the backseat as Happy navigates traffic and hums along with the radio when they get the call.

There's something serious going on at the Tower, and JARVIS, sounding oddly muddled, sends them a special automated code that says not to return until instructed by her father or the captain. Georgia waves goodbye to her plans of spending the evening literally hammering out the last few problems of the Kevlar-esque bulletproof material.

Happy is under strict instructions, in cases such as these, to take Georgia to a safehouse that's been given the Natasha seal of approval. They veer off towards Hell's Kitchen, and Georgia starts flipping through news sites on her phone, looking for some hint of what might be happening at home.

There's nothing.

Whatever this intrusion is, it's at least not aliens pouring through a space portal looking to wreak devastation. She hits the button to turn off the screen, stifling the sigh that wants to escape her mouth. She debates calling Pepper, who is likely feeling equally helpless and frustrated, but merely shuffles up the stairs behind Happy, who is looking furtively at every door they pass as if someone might leap out at them.

Georgia doesn't kid herself. She's not the interesting Stark. She hasn't had an honest kidnapping attempt since she was seven.

The safehouse is on the third floor of an apartment building that has seen better days, but isn't quite falling down either. The couch is broken in, and she curls up with her nose to her phone, waiting for the all-clear signal. She doesn't want to miss it.

Happy is nodding off against his will at the small kitchen table, and Georgia tucks her knees into her chest and lets her eyes close. Her phone is set to loud; she won't miss the call.

She won't.

***

A sunbeam hits her face just right, startling her to awakeness. Georgia rubs at her face and scrubs her tongue against the fuzzy feeling in her mouth. Her phone is still quiet, but it is most certainly the next morning.

"Happy?" she says, her voice croaking on his name. "Happy, wake up."

He snorts himself awake, which would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact that Georgia can taste the panic growing in the back of her mouth.

"Oh no," he says, once he's blinking himself awake. "Oh no, Miss Stark..."

"Can we call Dad? Is that in the rules?"

"We'd better, anyway. No call and no one showing up here..." Happy looks unhappy. "Get yourself ready, and we'll figure out what to do from here."

Georgia disappears herself into the bathroom, where there are a few toothbrushes still in their packaging under the sink. Grateful to Natasha and her endless need to prepare for the worst possible scenario, even if she _is_ completely terrifying, Georgia gives her teeth a good scrub and takes a long pee before heading back into the living room.

Happy is sitting with his phone pressed to his ear, the palm of his other hand pressed firmly against his forehead. She pauses in the doorway, unsure of whether that is the 'oh god, why me?' forehead press, or the 'for the love of god, _why me?_ ' forehead press.

"For the love of God," Happy says, and that answers that question. "Talk to your daughter. I'll have her home soon."

He passes the phone over with an eye roll and a sigh. Frustrated, but not terrified. Probably the best possible outcome, in all honesty. "Daddy?" she says. "What's going on?"

"I'm so sorry, Georgie. I thought you were out for the night, and JARVIS... wasn't around to remind me about the protocols. Everything's fine, really. I mean, if your version of 'fine' includes sentient robots shrugging off their purpose of being and destroying your favourite AI, then yeah, fine."

Georgia squints a little at the wall. "Sorry, are we still talking about JARVIS?" she asks, because there seems to be something she's missed here.

"Among other things. God, this is a shitshow. I need you to come home and lend me your brain for a while. Georgie, seriously, right now."

There is very little that Georgia knows of that instills that sort of angry desperation in her father.

"I'm leaving right now, Dad."

***

Tony Stark packs up a Quinjet and his teammates and they fly across the world to prevent a small town from being dropped from the sky by the robot he made to save them. It's all very confusing. Georgia sits and stares at the television coverage forever, twists her hands in her lap, and wishes that she was better for more than sitting around and holding her breath.

***

Avengers headquarters moves out of the tower and into a quiet space in upstate New York. It's strange to have the tower back to just family, just her and Dad and Pepper, without running into people in the kitchen or smelling those buttermilk pancakes that the captain got right every time. Georgia sits on the Quinjet launch pad and stares out towards the northwest, wishing her eyes were sharp like Clint's, so that maybe she could see the Avengers facility and make sure everyone was okay.

***

No one's called since they left.  
  
She supposes she shouldn't be so hung up about it. She's really no one special, to them, just the daughter of a teammate who lurked about and sometimes pitched in with armour design and weapon repairs. But the new facility is full of professionals whose only job is to cater to what the Avengers needs, and that's probably better for them anyway.

With a bit of effort and careful questioning, she's managed to get some information out of her father, but mostly that's been limited to hearing about the Barton homestead and how Bruce left them all without a word, taking their jet with him. The captain and Natasha are both living at the new Avengers headquarters, and Thor is off-planet once again.  
  
Her father has been sulking a little bit around the apartment, and he disappears in his suit, heading for headquarters at least once a week. Georgia can't quite bring herself to ask what he does there, how everyone is doing. He doesn't offer much, just comes home and collapses into bed, then wakes up in the morning and throws himself into some new project for the team.  
  
Georgia brings her feet up from where they've been just dangling over the edge of the launch pad, hundreds of feet above the pavement, and heads back inside to the dark apartment. JARVIS doesn't run the building anymore because he's a real boy now, carefully hidden away upstate as well, and FRIDAY is still learning the ropes, so the lights don't pop on as Georgia wanders through to her bedroom. FRIDAY is plenty intelligent and nice enough, but she's certainly not the AI who was one part brother, one part babysitter and one part butler when Georgia was young.  
  
She flops across her bed and stares morosely into the depths of her closet. It's full of beautiful clothes and more shoes than one person reasonably ought to have, but her eyes catch only on the box in the corner, full of treasures that cost her a pretty penny to acquire. It can't stay there forever. It's not meant for her, and someone else will benefit much more from having it.  
  
She will do this one thing, and then let it go. She doesn't know why she keeps holding out hope for someone who can't even be bothered to say goodbye to the people he roomed with for the better part of a year. Maybe Steven Rogers is actually kind of a dick, and she was just too blinded by his pecs and his blue eyes and the form-fitting suit to notice.  
  
The box is nearly full, and Georgia finds some spare papers to shove in the corners so things don't rattle about inside. She wants to do it carelessly, but she can't help but make sure everything is snug for its trip. She pops the ring box open one last time, admires the plain band that clearly meant so much to someone at one time, then closes it up and presses a kiss to the velvet box. It goes on top of everything else, nestled amongst the scrunched up paper.  
  
The lid folds over neatly, and Georgia covers the seams with tape. She prints the address to the Avengers headquarters on the top in tidy block letters, alongside the captain's name, and takes it down to the front desk to be mailed off that afternoon. She spends the rest of the day watching old cartoons and drinking wine straight from the bottle.

***

Georgia spends the next day wearing sunglasses to protect her eyes from the too-bright sun. She goes out to be seen along Fifth Avenue, browsing at stores that she doesn't need anything from, just to remind herself that she's rich and she's famous and she's got plenty of men who'd be happy to have her.

She calls up a couple of friends she hasn't talked to in a while, and they go out to a series of bars that night, getting progressively drunker until Georgia doesn't even care about the paparazzi hanging by the doors. She loops her arm through her friend's, and tells herself that she's young, she's beautiful, she's got the world by the balls.

By the time the sun rises, she still hasn't convinced herself of that last bit.  
  
***  
  
She finally takes Pepper up on the offer to visit the Malibu house a couple days later, and Georgia spends most of the flight out there indulging herself with reading sad love stories that she can bawl her eyes out over without anyone to judge her about it. She arrives in sunny California with red-rimmed eyes but a lot of repressed feelings purged from her chest. Pepper's driver picks her up from the airport, tactfully says nothing about her appearance, and takes her straight to the house.  
  
Georgia has big plans to spend the next week drunk and in the sun. If she never puts on shoes, she will have accomplished everything she set out to do while here. She's well into her second bottle, enjoying the sensation of her skin sizzling in the heat, when Pepper steps onto the pool deck.  
  
"Are you drunk already?" is the first thing out of her mouth.  
  
"Stark," Georgia says as justification. She gives the bottle a bit of a wave. "We don't like feelings, so we drown them in alcohol. Family tradition. You inherit it with the business."  
  
"Uh huh," Pepper says, toeing off her heels and seating herself on the lounger next to hers. They sit in silence for a long moment, and Georgia takes the opportunity to drain the rest of the bottle. "Listen, I got a strange call from Tony a little while ago. It seems that Steve got this package in the mail, and naturally everyone was very suspicious, and they opened it up in the lab to be sure nothing dangerous was in it."

"Oh God," Georgia says, letting her head drop against the lounger and tossing a forearm over her eyes. She needs at least two more bottles of wine to deal with this. Or some tequila. Definitely tequila.

"And of course everyone was shocked when the box was full of antiques of little consequence. Except Steve recognized something." Georgia wished Pepper would just shut up and let her die of humiliation alone. "And then something else. Until he realized that the entire box was full of things that used to belong to him or his family."

"So some kind soul finally parted with all the Cap collectibles they were hoarding away. So what?"

"Georgia, they tracked the parcel's origin. It came from Stark Tower."

"Look," Georgia says, sitting up and facing Pepper straight-on. "Maybe it was a mistake, and I'm sorry, but it didn't seem right to keep all those things away from him. It's all he has of his family. Of _course_ he should have his mother's wedding ring and, like, the only known photo of her holding him as an infant. It's not fair that strangers get to keep these things when they don't mean anything to them. So, fine, I found them, and I sent them over. It's my good deed for the year, so if you don't mind, I'll just go back to abusing my liver now, thanks."

Pepper simply looks sadder, and Georgia can't say she likes the expression much. "Are you sure that's all this is?" she asks gently. "Georgia, there's nothing wrong if there's something more than that."

"It doesn't _matter_ anymore! They all went off to save the world again, and no one came back home, and no one said goodbye, so obviously it didn't mean anything. Can we just leave it alone? God, Pepper, I just want to be left _alone_."

Georgia doesn't feel the tears on her cheeks until Pepper is wiping them away with her fingertips. "Oh, sweetie," she says, then shifts onto the edge of Georgia's lounger and hugs her close. Georgia lets her head be tucked under Pepper's chin, and together they sit in the bright California sun and let her tears drip into their laps.

***

Pepper doesn't prod anymore, and the only communications she gets from her dad are texts asking her opinion of whatever project he's working on now, or photos of DUM-E wearing a blender carafe as a hat. There are no mentions of Captain America, the Avengers, or anything that is not directly related to her life in Malibu as it currently stands.

She stays on the west coast for three weeks, until her skin is bronzed and she's burned through an entire four seasons of _Gilmore Girls_. Then she packs up her belongings and gets on the Stark jet with Pepper, and they soar over the American Midwest back to New York.

Georgia stares down at the green fields below her and imagines that Clint Barton is standing in one of them right this moment.

They touch down in the late afternoon, and stop for a bite to eat before heading home. Manhattan feels busy and _tall_ after Malibu, but there's satisfaction in returning to the city she's worked so hard to make her home, after she'd left California behind. Together, she and Pepper flash quick smiles at the paparazzi who spot them, but otherwise keep a low profile in the back corner of the restaurant.

"I hate to do this," Pepper says as she spears a dumpling on her fork. "But we really do need to talk about what drove you out to California in the first place."

Georgia fiddles with her spoon, then dips it back into her soup. "Just needed to get my head together, that's all. I won't let it distract me from the work, Pepper, honestly."

"Of course not," she replies, and Georgia wishes her tone were patronizing so she could be angry at her. "But you know Tony. He's going to convince the Avengers to come visit the tower eventually, and I don't want you to be hurt. And you should know that Steve is still pretty suspicious as to where the parcel came from. Tony took credit for it, but he was there when it arrived and didn't know what it was, so Steve is absolutely not buying it. I'm not saying you need to tell anyone, but you should know."

Georgia gives her soup a long, slow stir. It was probably too much to hope for that running across the country was going to fix anything.

Their return to the tower, when they finally arrive, is unexciting, except for when her father spots them and nearly breaks his jaw from grinning so hard.

"You're back! Pepper, sweetheart, I demand that you never leave me for so long again. The others bullied me and there was no one to take my side. And Georgie, come here, give your dad a hug-" and she can't help but sniffle as he wraps her in his arms and clings to her just as much as she clings to him. "I'd forgotten how brown you get in the sun. Come on, I could use an extra set of hands in the lab, and DUM-E just doesn't have the dexterity I need."

"Of course," she says, and if it's a bit more watery than normal, no one says a thing.

***

The problem with Tony Stark is that even when he knows to leave well-enough alone, he is physically incapable of leaving well-enough alone.

He rolls over to her on his little stool, and Georgia wants to roll her eyes at the practiced nonchalance of it all. "How was Malibu?" he asks, fiddling with a bit of wiring she's only just finished. She gives his hand a slap instead of answering. "Hey, now. Just because you have your knickers in a knot over Cap doesn't mean you get to be rude."

"Let's not discuss my knickers, ever again," Georgia says, setting another piece of electronics down. "Especially not in relation to the captain."

"The captain?" her dad says, looking amused.

"It's his title, isn't it?"

"Usually he prefers Steve."

"Yeah, well, usually I prefer to work in peace."

"Georgia, you gotta explain this box to me."

"It's a control switch. I would think that was obvious."

He doesn't much appreciate her avoidance, and he uses his foot to give her stool a turn so she's facing him directly. "I tracked some of that stuff down, G. There was nearly fifty thousand dollars of collectibles in that box. What's the deal?"

She's about to give him to same speech she gave to Pepper, but her father tips her chin up with his finger. "Pep kept me updated on what was going on, when you were out west. She seems to think that you've got some feelings for Steve." He waits, as patiently as Tony Stark ever gets, for her grudging nod. "Alright. Well, I'm not entirely sure what the dad protocol is for me here, but I'm tempted to try and punch him in the face."

"For the love of God, dad," she says, exasperated. "It's not like he's done anything."

"Exactly! It's unacceptable. Who turns down a beautiful, brilliant girl like you? He clearly must be mind-controlled or something."

"Dad, you can't expect every boy I have a crush on to like me back. That's ridiculous." But his certainty kind of makes her feel a little better, even if she mostly just wants to sulk. "I meant for it to be a gift for his birthday, but then with everything that happened, I just sort of... gave up, I guess. And it didn't feel right to keep those things for myself. I didn't want to make a big fuss out of it."

"Well, mission failed on that one, darling. You had about six agents and four Avengers ready to blow that box to kingdom come if there was anything untoward inside. Maybe next time don't send a mystery package to a national icon without a return address."

"I'll keep it in mind," Georgia says. He looks at her closely, then leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead. Her eyes flutter shut at the feeling of protection that's always surrounded him since she was a child.

"Maybe next time," he says, and it's so gentle that Georgia's heart clenches, "just try talking to the guy, alright? Sometimes guys with all that focus, they don't do so well when pretty girls are too subtle. And if he still says no, I'll get the suit."

***

It's three months after Ultron had nearly destroyed the earth by way of dropping a _city_ on it, and Georgia is on her knees and elbows, groping desperately for what she's looking for.

"Dad! Did you steal my jersey?"

His tousled head pops into her door. "Why would I do that?" he asks, tossing a blueberry into his mouth.

She drags her arm out from under her bed, her last-ditch attempt to find the MIT jersey that had proven itself to be the best study shirt in existence, and glares at him. "Goddammit, you're _wearing it_."

He grins at her.

"Aren't you going to miss me?"

"One hundred percent absolutely not. Can I have that back now?"

MIT was, with pride, about to embark on educating the latest of the Starks at the doctorate level. Georgia is nervous, of course, not because she's worried about being able to do the work, but because several of the professors had taught or worked alongside her father, and there is certainly a reputation to maintain.

Although she imagines that she is generally much easier to deal with than her father had ever been.

He pulls the jersey over his head and tosses it into her basket of clean clothes. Georgia leaps to her feet to snatch it back out, balling it up and adding it to her hamper instead. "Gross," she says plaintively.

As she moves past him with an armful of clothes to add to her suitcase, her father pulls her in close and tucks her under his arm. "Hey, don't lose your mind with all the classes and the deadlines," he says, the most serious she's seen him in weeks. "Have some fun, alright? Get your mind off... things. I expect a few good stories when you come home for Thanksgiving."

"Oh, I'm meant to stay away for that long?" she quips, then relents. "I won't. I'll make friends. I'll try, anyhow. Don't drive Pepper crazy while I'm gone, or I might have to steal her away to live in my dorm room with me. You know, for her own good."

"Thank God you're not staying in an actual dorm room," he replies, but she knows that the little apartment she's renting for the next couple years might as well be a ramshackle university dormitory room in his eyes.

Georgia folds the armful of shirts into her suitcase, smoothing the wrinkles out with a brush of her hand, and zips the whole thing shut. She leaves tomorrow morning, heading north back to where she spent five years completing her undergrad and Master's degrees. She's not worried about going back; the MIT campus is like her third home, after Manhattan and Malibu, but the Board of Directors seems to think that she will return fully capable of running the company as soon as she has that piece of paper in hand. Never mind that she managed just fine for those long, awful months where her father was trapped in a cave with a battery strapped to his chest, no PhD in her pocket.

The movers are shifting her belongings into a trailer, and Pepper has ensured that the basics are already in her new apartment. When she was fifteen and starting university for the first time, she was too young for the regular dorms and far too young to live on her own, so she'd lived with a staff of two people, a housekeeper-slash-chef and a one-man security detail. Now she's plenty old enough to live on her own, and she relishes the opportunity.

Georgia gathers the last few things, slings her purse over her shoulder, and takes a last look at her bedroom. It's been cleared of all her favourite things; the bookshelves are half-empty and her closet is stocked with only the fanciest party dresses she owns. Everything comfy is coming with her.

Her father is waiting in the kitchen to give her a hug, and she lingers in his grip for longer than she'd like to admit. Pepper strokes her hair and holds her tight, and then Georgia is in the elevator and whisked down to the garage, where she slips into her car and turns the ignition. FRIDAY opens the garage door for her, and Georgia eases out onto the busy Manhattan streets.

It doesn't take long for her to be out of the city, cruising the I-91 and stopping in Hartford for lunch. The drive is long and quiet, and Georgia isn't sure if she's relieved or not to finally pull into Boston, cross the river and pop the car into park in front of the apartment building. The movers have already arrived, and the truck looks nearly empty. She follows them inside, finds her life in boxes throughout the rooms, and smiles at the movers gratefully, if a bit tiredly.

Georgia sits on the hardwood floor and eats her delivery Chinese at the coffee table, watching TV so that the place doesn't seem so empty. It's always a bit odd, these first few weeks without her father always completely underfoot and rambling, without Pepper sweeping into the room and bussing a kiss across her forehead, without the Avengers scavenging through the communal fridge looking for someone else's leftovers to eat. Not that the Avengers have been around lately.

She scrapes the bottom of the takeout container just as her show ends, and Georgia gathers up the empty Styrofoam to dump it in the trash. The sun is setting, leaving long shadows across the floor, and she finds herself drifting towards bed even though it's barely 9 o'clock. The day has been long, and she's emotionally drained for too many reasons, and the fresh sheets beckon her into their depths. She strips off her clothes and climbs in, naked, curling her arms around the spare pillow that she'd once tentatively, naively hoped would become Steve's pillow.

Georgia hasn't heard from any of the Avengers she is not related to for twelve weeks, and she is slowly coming to accept that the friendships she had put so much effort into cultivating in a non-creepy, only-mildly-Stark-like manner had been terminated without her consent. It was over, and Georgia had only robotics and engineering to keep her company for the next two, long years.

Might as well start with getting the first night over with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Camilla Cabello's "Into It."


	2. Chapter Two

Classes are fine, the professors demanding and gushing in turn, and Georgia is counting down the days until she can leave this godforsaken campus and go back to Manhattan, where she can source better bagels and people care about celebrity far less than they do in Boston. Pepper has been in regular contact, but the topic of Thanksgiving has been distinctly vague whenever Georgia brings it up. Her father, it seems, can't decide what to do for the holiday, and she worries that she might be stranded at MIT until Christmas.

She has a short break between classes, and she ducks into a narrow, oft-unused hallway to pull out her phone. There are three days left until she can head home again, and she'd really rather have a straight answer once and for all. Georgia bypasses Pepper entirely, calls her father's cellphone, and hopes that he doesn't decide to answer it in the middle of a board meeting, or a Congressional hearing, or some other place where he thinks that taking a phone call will be hilarious and statement-making.

"Georgie," he says, sounding somewhat out of breath and distracted.

She wrinkles her nose.

"Please tell me that you didn't accept a call while mucking about in bed with my maternal-figure," she says. "It's the middle of the day. Have some respect."

"Mucking about with-" He cuts himself off suddenly, grunts harshly, a hard breath in her ear, and Georgia gags a little bit.

" _Dad_ ," she says. "Ugh. Forget it. Call me back about Thanksgiving when you're done. God." And she pokes furiously at her phone, wishing for the days when she was young and had a flip-phone she could snap shut with enough fury to match her mood.

She's irritated enough that she nearly doesn't accept the call when her phone buzzes a minute later, but he's persistent enough to make her life frustrating if she doesn't. "Yes?" she bites out, phone lifted to ear.

"I wasn't 'mucking around' with Pep," he says, sounding both displeased and amused with the phrasing.

"Uh huh," Georgia says, because she's heard that one before, and it's a lie more often than not. Dad likes to get his muck on as much as possible, which is gross to think about but also a simple fact of life.

"Training exercise at headquarters," is what he says instead, and Georgia's breath catches in her throat, because chances are that he's standing, right this second, about ten feet away from Captain America as they practice hard to save the world, and here she is, gearing up to throw a fit about potentially having to spend a long weekend away from home.

The indignation sort of drains out of her. She presses her shoulders against the wall, shuffles her feet across the scuffed linoleum. "You shouldn't answer the phone if someone's beating you up," she says instead, mildly scolding, feeling embarrassed and shallow.

"Gotta practice sometime," he says. "What if I need to answer the phone as aliens come swooping down from portals in the sky and I've never tried to before?"

"FRIDAY isn't like JARVIS. She doesn't know the suit well enough yet. It's not safe for you to hand over that much control when you're in danger."

"Georgie," he says, tone suddenly soft. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." And then promptly humiliates herself by sniffling down the phone at him. "Honestly, it's no big deal. I just wanted... it's fine, I'll just order in a stupid amount of food and gorge myself until I have to roll back into my bed."

"Binge eating is hardly ever the answer," he says immediately, followed by, "Is it school? Do you need a break? I'll send the jet; you can be home in half an hour, practically."

"No," she says, laughing a little bit through the lump in her throat, because her father has always been best at showing his affection with lavish displays. She's just like her old man, sometimes. "I mean, not right now. If you wanted to send it for this weekend, though, I wouldn't complain too much."

It's perhaps ridiculous to fly such a short distance, but homesickness prods her into accepting the offer that'll let her be home half a day earlier.

"So responsible, my girl," her dad says fondly. "Big plans in the big city or something?"

She pauses, waits for him to laugh it off, but he seems serious enough. This happens, on occasion, when Tony Stark gets wrapped up in something so whole-heartedly that the rest of the world fades away. "Dad, it's Thanksgiving."

"That explains so much," he says thoughtfully. Georgia shakes her head.

"So, plane? Thanksgiving?" she prompts, and her father makes some agreeable noises at her. "Good. I expect there to be stuffing. I want half my plate to be stuffing."

"Of course there'll be stuffing," he says, because if Tony and Georgia can agree on one thing, it is that stuffing drowned in chicken gravy is the best part of the monstrosity of a holiday that is Thanksgiving. "We should invite the team," he adds suddenly, and Georgia's heart skips straight into double-time. "It's been a while, hasn't it? A couple months, at least."

"Four months, Dad," Georgia says, then wishes she could take it back. No reason to share her fixation on the disappearance of the Avengers with the rest of the class. "I think." Such a smooth recovery. She rubs at the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, like that'll somehow alleviate the awkwardness of the whole situation.

"That long? I could've sworn..." He trails off. "Well, listen, get your butt to the airport on Friday afternoon, and I'll make sure you're crammed to the brim with stuffing before we roll you back to school on Monday. Deal?"

"Sounds fabulous, Dad. I can't wait."

"Good. Give Parsons a hard time for me, will you? That cranky bastard still makes me grind my teeth when I think about him. Live up to your Stark genes and be a little hellion."

"I'm not going to terrorize my advisor. Send him a snarky email or two. It'll make you both happy."

"Not nearly as fun. Look, I've gotta go; the team just took a five-minute break and someone's going to throw a shield at me if I don't hurry this up. Friday, airport, stuffing. Got it?"

"I've got it. See you, love you," and she makes a series of obnoxious 'goodbye' noises into the receiver before hanging up.

She tries really hard not to think about Captain Steve Rogers grappling about on the mat, muscles flexing and sweat dripping-

Georgia sighs and pockets her phone, and leaves campus without ever getting her lab time in. She's going to be useless until she works this horniness out of her system, anyway.

***

The Stark jet is on the tarmac, and Georgia passes by the line-ups of harried passengers hoping to visit their own families at Thanksgiving to exit through a side door so that she can be ushered directly to the plane. The pilot, Eric, is a familiar face who has been working for the Starks forever, and she gives him a big grin that he gladly returns as he takes her luggage and helps her up the stairs.

The jet is luxurious, and thankfully lacks the poles and club lights that Pepper assures her had once been a staple part of Tony Stark's travelling plans. Georgia settles into one of the big chairs and cracks open the bottle of water that has been thoughtfully left for her. The jet rolls past the huge liners, and it's not long before they're taxiing down the runway and lifting off.

It's not a long trip, barely an hour before they're landing again. Eric carries her suitcase out of the plane, and Georgia takes it from him with her thanks. There's a car waiting nearby, and a menacing figure stands by its door.

"Happy!" she calls out, waving frantically. He gives her a stern nod, because Happy takes his duties far too seriously. But when she gets closer, she spreads her arms wide and Happy matches the hug with a big squeeze of his own.

The sidewalks of Manhattan are busy with people, the trees finally shedding their bright leaves, the streets teeming with cars. Georgia stares out the window of the car, takes in the sights she's missed so much for the past two months, watches Stark Tower come into view and rise higher and higher in the sky until they're pulling into the garage.

The elevator ride up is quiet, and Georgia smoothes her shirt back into place and waits patiently until the doors slide open at the penthouse floor. There's suddenly a loud burst of noise, voices talking and laughing all over one another, her father clearly holding court and Pepper's tinkling laugh floating out distinctively. Georgia drags the suitcase out behind her, and finds herself the centre of attention immediately.

"Georgie!" her father calls out, and he's at her side in an instant. She wraps her arms around him and pushes her face into the crease of his shoulder, pulls in a deep breath of that smell of oil and ozone that she's never found duplicated anywhere else. His hand strokes the back of her head, and for a moment, despite being surrounded by people, they find themselves in a moment of father comforting daughter.

She pulls her head away and laughs, a bit forced, but Tony sweeps her off to the bar for a glass of wine and deposits her with Pepper as he rushes away to greet the next person coming off the elevator. Pepper looks at her fondly, asks her about her past week at school, and reintroduces her to the terrifying Natasha Romanov.

They stand next to each other for ten minutes without saying anything else after Pepper goes to greet someone else.

Georgia swirls her wine in the glass and tries to play it cool next to the silent agent. Natasha has never been very talkative with her, and Georgia wishes she knew what to say to break the ice. Mostly she figures it has to do with their wildly different upbringings, her with everything under the sun and Natasha in some hellish Russian training ground that never truly let her be a child. Was it fair to hate someone for their circumstances? She swallows half her wine in one shot and eyes the bar, considers how many refills she'll need before her heart stops jackhammering in her chest.

"You know," Natasha says, and Georgia's heart can't decide whether to beat faster or just fail completely. "It's nice to be back in the city, for once. There's not a lot to do at headquarters, once you've tried out everything in the gym."

Georgia hums non-committally. Her wine glass is nearly empty. A plausible escape is only a few mouthfuls away.

"But sometimes, something interesting happens. Did you hear about the package Steve got?"

It's so casual, so nonchalant, that Georgia can't help but stare as her brain tries to process what her ears have just heard. She knows. They all know. Her face burns uncomfortably hot, and she drains the remainder of her glass just for the brief coolness in her throat. "Yeah, Dad mentioned something?" she says, but her voice is stilted and she's having a hard time maintaining eye contact with Natasha. "I heard it wasn't a big deal, after all. Just a mistake, I guess."

Natasha eyes her in that cool, thoughtful way she has. "Steve was pretty amazed at all the stuff that was in there. I don't think he realized how many of his family's belongings got kept as collector's items."

"Well, Captain America, you know," Georgia says, shrugging as carelessly as she can manage.

Silence reigns again.

"I'm just going to go-" Georgia says, lifting her glass to show off how there's nothing left. Natasha's hand is on her forearm before she can finish the sentence, and she can't help but flinch under the contact.

"You haven't told him, have you?" Natasha says, as serious as Georgia has ever seen her. She shakes her head, perhaps a bit frantically, clutching at her empty glass. Natasha's hand is warm on her skin, not holding tight, but Georgia knows what those hands are capable of.

"No, I would never- I just wanted, I thought, oh God, I'm so sorry-" Georgia stammers out, knowing her face has gone red again and that she's lost all of her Stark cool, the calm exterior that she's been polishing since she was twelve. "I never meant anything bad by it. I tried not to make it a thing, I swear. I just wanted-" she starts again, then cuts herself off. They're surrounded by people and, as always, in public is not the place to make a scene. "Look, it doesn't matter," she finally settles on, steeling her reserve. "Whatever might have been is over before it started, and that's fine. It's fine."

"Hmm," Natasha says, and disappears into the crowd.

Georgia nearly trips over her own feet in her rush to the bar.

***

She's pretty certain she's had a full bottle of wine before dinner even starts. She was tempted to fill a plate with turkey and stuffing and absolutely no cranberry sauce, then make a tactical retreat to her bedroom, but her father had found her and tucked her under his arm, and now there's no escape. He and Pepper sit at opposite ends of the laden table, and Georgia is parked on her father's right-hand side.

Steve takes the seat on his left.

It's easy enough to keep her eyes on her plate, her nose in her glass, and her voice quiet. The conversation is raucous around her, but Georgia eats until she's full and then stuffs a few more forkfuls in just for something to do. Tony holds court at his end of the table, joking and laughing with his teammates and friends that he's gathered around him. Pepper is charming and witty and so far away, and Georgia wonders if she could get DUM-E to blast a hole in the floor under her chair so that she could fall through and avoid side-eye glimpses of how the captain's button-up shirt strains across his broad shoulders and sits tight against his incredibly attractive throat.

She wonders if anyone has told him that he's no longer the underfed boy he once was, that he can buy a size large shirt and he won't drown in it anymore. Maybe he's uncomfortable facing the truth, that so much has changed since he was 23 and poor and in 1943.

She's too full for dessert when the golden-brown pumpkin pies get brought out, and Georgia pokes at her slice until it's laying in a disassembled mess in front of her. She jumps a little when something nudges her foot, and she glances up to see her father watching her carefully.

"Pie alright?" he asks, but his tone is far too low and earnest to be talking about dessert.

"Fine, it's great, really," Georgia says. "I'm just tired."

Thanksgiving dinner is not the place for dramatics. She can have her breakdown later, if she still needs it.

"Go on," Tony says, and it's sweet relief to push away from the table and leave the room behind her. She's not a shy person, and she's fully capable of standing up for herself, but God, the embarrassment of being surrounded by people who know the secret that's she held so close to her chest for so long, who can see the way the captain clearly doesn't return the feeling, it's just too much to deal with.

***

She's face-planted on her bed, a fresh bottle of wine that she snagged from behind the bar dangling from her fingertips over the edge. It's unfortunate that she has to get herself back to Boston tomorrow and can't just chug a bottle of tequila instead. Honestly, she's not sure why she thought coming home for Thanksgiving would be in any way relaxing, especially when it was obviously going to be a superhero-themed Thanksgiving. Georgia props herself on her elbow and takes a swig straight out of the bottle, swilling it around her mouth before swallowing.

If only alcohol really _could_ solve all her problems.

The sounds of the party are muted but merry, and laughter rings out occasionally over friendly voices. Georgia wonders idly how she got to this point, where hiding in her room like a child became preferable over mingling with the most popular, beautiful, influential people in the country.

She swigs at the wine until she’s facing the bottom of the bottle, then sets it down on the floor and rolls herself up in blankets. It’s probably best to simply sleep until she can go back to Boston, back to her life by herself, back to academia and absolutely no great missed loves.

The room spins and she can’t sleep.

Georgia groans and sticks one foot out of the blankets and settles it on the floor. Dimly, she hears the wine bottle hit the ground with a dull thunk, and she tries to remember if there was anything left that might be spilling out onto the expensive carpet that Pepper had imported specially. She doesn’t move to check.

Moving is hard.

She allows herself one pathetic whine, because her bed is stable but the walls won’t stop swirling around her, and wonders why she thought drinking two bottles of wine by herself in rapid succession was a good idea, even if she _did_ have a full meal in the middle. There must’ve been some reason.

There’s a knock on her door. Georgia does her best Wookie impression in response.

“Is that….?” the knocker asks, sounding bewildered. “Miss Stark?”

Oh God, it’s the captain. She doesn’t know if it’s better to burrow in and pretend he doesn’t exist, or straighten up and fake like she isn’t drunk off her ass right now.

She probably couldn’t pull that off convincingly at all. Burrowing it is.

“Miss Stark?” he says again, and she doesn’t know why he doesn’t just give up. “Are you alright?”

She is certainly not alright. He’s a smart cookie, that captain.

She can hear him speaking quietly to someone else behind the door, and then there’s the swift rap that she associates with her father, and the door is opening. Georgia ducks her head further under the blankets, but she’s sure that the disastrous tangle of her hair is spilling out over her pillow for everyone to see.

“Oh, Jesus, Georgie,” her father says, and she hears him pick up the empty bottle and set it on her desk. He doesn’t sound disappointed, exactly. More sad than anything. He pets the tufts of her hair that aren’t under the blankets with her. “Want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says with a sniffle. There’s a pause while he keeps stroking her hair, then she caves. “I don’t want to wait until I’m 40 to find the person I’m supposed to be with. Or I want to be not-rich and not-famous. That has to be easier, doesn’t it?”

“Hate to break it to you, kiddo,” her father says, “But that’s never been an option for you.”

“Ugh,” Georgia moans. It’s getting hot under the blankets, and she debates popping out for a breath of fresh air.

“What’s brought this all on? Is it-” He cuts himself off. “How related is this to the parcel incident?”

There’s a quiet shuffling of feet by the door that Georgia chooses to ignore.

“Basically 100% related,” she admits. “I thought maybe, he’s so famous that he’d have the same problems as me, and he’s so _nice_.”

“And nice to look at,” her dad says dryly.

“That too.” Her head is swimmy from all the wine, but she’s certain about this. “I don’t know how to make people like me without throwing my name and your money around. I don’t know how normal people do _any_ of this. And maybe he’s Captain America _now_ , but he used to be a normal boy. _He_ gets it, but I don’t. Just, people always make big gestures in movies, or whatever. I thought he’d like all his things back, and I could make it happen, and then maybe he’d notice me.”

It isn’t until her father peels the blankets back that she realizes there’s tears streaming down her face. She gives a wet snuffle and wipes at her eyes roughly. “Hey, now,” he says softly, which just makes her cry some more.

“And then everyone left and no one said goodbye, and I thought maybe we’d all started being friends, but Starks don’t have friends, do they? Only employees and those who hang around until they’ve leeched everything they want from you.”

“When the hell did you start coming up with all these bleak theories on life, huh?”

Georgia can’t help the sobs that bubble up from deep in her chest. “I don’t think I have any real friends,” she cries, and then there’s two strong hands pulled her up by the elbows, and she’s tucked against her father’s chest with his chin resting on her head. “If I didn’t talk to the professors at school, I’d never talk to anyone. But then I come home and no one wants to talk to me here, either.”

He’s making that shushing noise that he only makes when he doesn’t know what to say in the face of her tears, can’t find the words to make it better, only that he _wants_ to make it better. God, for all that her life sucks right now, at least her dad has always been there for her, Thanksgiving-related scatter-mindedness notwithstanding.

“Why haven’t you ever said anything?” he asks, quiet in her ear.

“Oh,” Georgia says through her tears, voice twisting with humiliation. “Poor little rich girl, can’t find anyone who likes her for her. What a shame, I guess she’ll have to go buy an island to dull the pain.”

There’s the rustling at the door again, and Georgia pushes her face more firmly into her father’s chest so she doesn’t have to look at the pity she imagines is on the captain’s face. But then his footsteps fade away, and she’s not sure if it’s worse that he heard all of that, or that he heard it and left anyway.

It hardly matters. Nothing will change.

***

The hangover in the morning is amplified from all the crying she’s done, but she is surprisingly snuggly in her bed. Georgia blinks her sore eyes open and finds herself staring at an armpit.

Her father’s eyes are closed, and he’s got stubble coming in that he’ll need to shave. He’s still in his clothes from the night before, shoes shucked off and tossed on the floor nearby.

She nearly wants to cry again.

She has a vague memory of him tucking her back into bed, of her clinging to his shirt and refusing to let the one man who has never let her down leave. And her billionaire father had abandoned his party with all his cool friends and curled up in bed with her and stayed until they both fell asleep.

If she can’t have anything else, at least she has him.

Her bladder and her headache press at her until she untangles herself from the blankets and pads to the ensuite. The splash of cold water on her face is startlingly brisk, and she blinks red, puffy eyes at her reflection in the mirror. Oh god. Georgia grabs a cleansing cloth and wipes furiously at the smudged eyeliner and the mascara streaks that frame her eyes.

She has officially hit hot mess status.

She pees and pops an Advil, then ducks into her closet to find some fresh clothes. Her father is still completely out of it, so she arranges the blankets around him and tells FRIDAY to let him sleep as long as he wants.

Georgia has sort of assumed that no one will be in the apartment, but she turns the corner into the kitchen to be met with a delicious scent in the air, and a deliciously wide set of shoulders in front of the gas range.

The captain is making pancakes with the ease of practice, a golden stack on the plate by his elbow. He’s in khakis and a t-shift that has clearly been ironed, and she’s almost certain that his ears go red when he hears her at the kitchen door.

“Good morning,” she says reflexively.

“Good morning, Miss Stark,” he echoes. “Did you… sleep well?”

She hums thoughtfully, then heads to the fridge and pokes her head inside. She’s not entirely sure why he’s even still here, to be honest; he can’t get drunk, so it’s not like he got too tipsy last night and couldn’t get home safely. She’s pretty sure he could drink a whole keg and still ride his bike home just fine.

She exits the fridge with orange juice in hand, then fetches the frozen berries from the freezer. Georgia is hyper-aware of the captain’s eyes on her back as she dumps it all in the big blender, then adds a banana for texture. She gives him an apologetic half-smile over her shoulder before she leans on the button, and the kitchen fills with the whine and grind of frozen strawberries meeting their match.

She lets go when it smooths out into something drinkable, and the room is quiet except for the hiss of butter around the pancakes. Georgia tips the smoothie into two glasses, with the intent of leaving one on her nightstand for her dad when he wakes up. She takes a sip of her own and nearly sighs at the cold, invigorating slide of fruit down her throat.

“There’s pancakes, if you’re interested,” the captain offers, his voice more tentative than she’s ever heard it. It’s obvious that neither of them are sure if they’re meant to ignore whatever happened last night, or if they’re supposed to start treating each other differently.

“Look,” Georgia says, nearly gesturing with her hands before she remembers they’re full of smoothie. “I’m sure you heard everything I said last night,” and if she hadn’t already been sure, the way his flush spreads from ears to neck certainly confirms it, “but you honestly don’t have to worry about anything. The wine just made me a bit...weepy. Seriously, forget it. And, um, thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass on the pancakes.”

“Oh,” the captain said, quiet and with a hint of helplessness. “If you’re sure.”

“Sure as rain!” Georgia says, forcing cheer with the experience of someone raised in the spotlight. She leaves the kitchen with her smoothies before she caves and eats one of those gloriously perfect pancakes.

***

Georgia hides herself in her father’s workshop for the next 24 hours until she can escape back to Boston without looking like she’s running away from Manhattan. DUM-E whirs at her, offering a wrench in his claw, as if he knows she’s broken and remembers that wrenches fix him when he’s broken too. She gives him a pat on his main strut and takes the wrench, if only to give her hands something to fiddle with while she lurks in the shop.

She’s not silly enough to meddle with anything her dad currently has in progress, so she finds the cleaning kit and pulls out Mark XVI and gives it a thorough polish. The metal gleams so brightly that she can’t help but flash her teeth at it when she's done, almost expecting to see the sparkle that finds its way into cartoons and bad commercials.

The glass window locks down in front of the suit, and she’s simply standing there and admiring her handiwork when the shop door opens with a pneumatic hiss. Georgia glances over her shoulder by reflex, because she’s expecting her father, but Agent Romanov steps in instead. Unsure, Georgia takes a step away from the suit displays. It seems unlikely that her father would simply let a SHIELD agent have full access to his workshop and all the treasures within, and although Georgia is absolutely no match for Romanov, she’s also not going to let the woman walk all over her without a fight.

She doesn’t really notice that she’s bracing herself until Agent Romanov cocks her head and smiles. “I get all the tech I need by asking nicely, not by stealing,” she says, and Georgia’s shoulders slump a little in relief. She really hadn’t been looking forward to being face-planted into the floor.

“I’m surprised you’re still hanging around here,” Romanov says, and Georgia flinches, just a little. Romanov’s face shifts minutely. “You’re young and rich and in Manhattan. Surely there’s someone you want to see?”

“Not really,” Georgia says, aiming for too-rich-to-care blitheness. “Everyone puts on a good family face this time of year. Can’t be photographed partying if you’re supposed to be eating turkey with your nearest and dearest.”

Romanov hums thoughtfully, but doesn’t answer. She steps up to stand next to Georgia by the display wall, and together they gaze at the armour her father builds and wears.

“I heard about last night,” Romanov says finally, and at least now Georgia knows that she knows.

“I imagine a super-spy has to know everything. I’m really not surprised.”

“I’d say you’ve done an admirable job hiding things until now, but I think we both know that would be a lie.”

“Ugh, what’s your point? I can…” Georgia pauses, swallows the lump in her throat, keeps going. “I can go, if it’s making him uncomfortable. I was heading out this evening anyway, but I can leave sooner, if it’s... weird.”

“Explain something to me,” Romanov says, leaning against the workbench with a braced hand. “For the daughter of an abrasively forthcoming billionaire, you’re rather determined to be out of everyone’s way. Why is that?”

Georgia stares down the beautiful redhead, the one who her dad wanted to seduce into bed before he knew how dangerous she was, and weighs the benefits of maybe finally telling someone. Her reputation in the superhero world is basically shot anyway, and Agent Romanov is likely to just snoop until she finds out regardless of what Georgia says.

“It’s impossible to meet people’s expectations for you when you’re touted as the genius daughter of a genius son who will carry the technological revolution through to the end of this century. Everyone expects me to be as intelligent and ruthless as my dad, but when a woman acts the way he does, she’s cut down by society in a heartbeat. I’m much better off working in the background, out of the public eye. It won’t last forever, and I know that, but as long as dad runs the company, I can spend my time in the lab and just get things done. Important things. I don't need to be in everyone's face to do that."

Romanov doesn't look convinced, if the way her mouth tightens is any indication.

Georgia stands quietly for a moment longer before gathering up all the things she used to clean the suit. There's a little wheeled cart built to hold all the fine brushes to get in the suit's crevices, and the sprays and polishes and cloths that would be called rags except they're top-of-the-line material that won't leave any scratches or marks. She tucks everything away into its designated place, then rolls the cart back into its nook in the wall where it is out of sight but always at hand.

Of course, it's too much to expect Romanov to simply leave when it's convenient for someone else, so when Georgia turns back, the spy is leaning against the workbench. She's not exactly tall, but she's certainly taller than Georgia, with longer legs and curvier hips, all wrapped up in simple, stylish clothing and topped with flaming red hair.

She's an impossibly beautiful, frustrating package.

"At least have some lunch with us, before you go," Romanov says, which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what Georgia was expecting.

"If you're sure," she says doubtfully.

"I'm sure." Romanov pushes off the workbench and winds her way gracefully towards the door, deftly avoiding DUM-E and his extinguisher but touching her fingertips to U as she passes them by.

Georgia watches until the spy is past the glass doors and Romanov has disappeared into the elevator beyond. "FRIDAY," she says. "Lock down the shop, please. And privacy settings."

"Yes, miss," FRIDAY replies, even as the windows fog over and the keypad by the door blinks red, secure. It's not easy to collapse onto the little wheelie stools that her dad prefers using, but Georgia slumps onto the nearest one and lets her head land heavily on the workbench.

"Lunch," she moans, because fate doesn't hate her enough already.

***

Lunch, as it turns out, is not going to be gathered around the kitchen counter like she assumed.

Her dad has a hankering for sushi, and he apparently likes taking the captain to all-you-can-eat joints just to watch the server's face as they bring an endless numbers of rolls to the table.

It's just the four of them, her dad, the captain, Romanov and herself, and Georgia is pretty sure that she's a victim of ugly duckling syndrome or something. She's worth something, she knows. She's smart and talented and she's got the world ahead of her, but surrounded by this sort of company, she tends to forget it.

The sushi place is only three blocks away, which is close enough that even her dad agrees that it would be ridiculous to take one of the cars, and so they walk together like the three of them are the Plastics and she's Cady Heron, on the fringe and desperately trying to fit in. They don't take any bodyguards with them, because assigning someone to protect the Black Widow and Captain America is pretty redundant, and for a second Georgia thinks that maybe she's just any other girl tagging along to lunch with her dad and his coworkers.

Until they step into the restaurant and the servers simultaneously welcome her dad and have a quiet, furious argument about who will get to serve them, because Tony Stark is a legendarily good tipper.

She sits next to her dad in the booth, which means that she's sitting across from the captain. Georgia tucks her feet underneath her chair pointedly, because she absolutely will not be caught accidentally playing footsie with Captain America.

She tries hard not to stare at him, which mostly means that she ends up giving the menu way more of her attention than it really deserves.

The waitress comes by their table with glasses of water and tries to look unaffected by their presence, but she keeps cracking silly jokes and then giggling a little too much, and Georgia is reasonably certain that she's not paying any of her other tables nearly the same sort of attention. The girl flips her dark hair over her shoulder, beams at the captain, and then asks him what he'd like to order.

"Oh," he says, and looks startled. "No, ladies first." He gestures at her, even though Romanov is right next to him and could easily go first as well. Georgia snaps the menu up towards her nose to hide the blush that's tracking across her cheeks.

"I'll do a mango salmon roll, and a spicy tuna. Miso soup and gyoza to start?"

Romanov rattles off her order as well, and then her dad, and then the captain, whose order is so long that the server has to flip to the next page in order to get it all written down.

And then they sit.

The chopsticks are plastic and not the bamboo kind that come in a little paper sleeve, so there's not even the distraction of snapping them apart and smoothing down any rough edges. She takes two long sips of water, puts the glass down, then traces her fingertips through the condensation on the side of the glass. Her phone vibrates in her pocket and she slips it out, grateful for the excuse, only to see a dark screen and no new messages.

Goddamn phantom vibrations.

She puts her phone down on the table, folds her fingers together in her lap, and takes a deep, quiet breath through her nose. This is ridiculous. There is no doubt that she is making this way worse than it ought to be, awkward situation or not.

Georgia Stark is going to be an adult about this.

She lifts her chin and looks directly at Romanov, opens her mouth, and-

-the waitress swings past with a tray full of soup bowls and dumplings and edamame.

Well.

That's basically the type of luck Georgia was having this year.

She's never liked the ladle-type spoons that they give out at sushi places, so she lifts the bowl straight to her lips and sips at the broth. It's hot and salty and completely satisfying in a way that French onion soup could never hope to match. She closes her eyes and breathes in the wafting steam, then sighs contentedly.

The captain is bravely attempting to use the ladle-spoon, probably because he used cutlery when he was fighting in the mud in Europe during the war, dammit, and he would use cutlery in a 21st century restaurant in the presence of ladies, even if it was a spoon that was not mouth-comfort-friendly.

He was such a gentleman it was almost irritating.

There is a small tower of six gyoza on the little plate in front of her, when she finally sets the soup bowl down. Georgia stabs one with her chopsticks and pops it in her mouth, then nudges the plate toward her dad, who likes them but never enough to get a whole order to himself. She's been letting him steal dumplings off her plate for as long as she can remember liking dumplings.

He plucks one off the stack, dunks it around in the little sauce bowl, and promptly shoves the whole thing in his mouth in a single bite. It's disgusting.

He's still eating with one hand when he fishes his phone out of his pocket and pokes idly away at something. When she glances over at the screen, she's not entirely surprised to see that he's got a rough schematic up for how the newest suit's mechanisms will work; something about a version built into his private jet where he can go straight from sitting down in the cabin to flying in the suit without even standing up. It's complicated engineering, figuring out how it will all work, and she gets a little engrossed just reading along, picturing it in her head as he fiddles with some math he must have been rolling over in his head even as they sit and chat.

She does exactly the same thing, never quite letting a project leave her mind even when she's left it behind in the workshop.

Georgia slides the gyoza plate an inch closer to Romanov, who nods slightly and takes a dumpling as well. And then it's only right that she offer one to the captain, too.

He doesn't notice when the plate approaches him, because he's fully involved with wrangling a cheese wonton up to his mouth. Georgia is pretty sure that Romanov and her dad are slyly watching the two of them to make sure that she doesn't totally lose it again. She's not going to give them a show.

"Did you want to try a dumpling, Cap?" she asks, forcing her voice into the bubbly tone she uses with other celebrity kids. Always a smile, always cheerful.

He's just gotten the wonton into his mouth, and he chews quickly, like he wants to respond to her but not with his mouth full.

"No rush. Whenever you want one," Georgia says, and leaves the plate sitting between them.

His throat works as he swallows, the prominent line of his Adam's apply bobbing in an embarrassingly enthralling way. "Thank you, I'd love to try one," and he's just so polite in the wake of everything that she kind of wants to die, or just skip ahead ten years until she's well-shot of leftover puberty hormones or whatever it is that makes her this way around him.

It dawns on her suddenly that she's going to be back in Boston tomorrow, getting ready to go back to classes after the long weekend, and the captain and Romanov are going to return to the Avengers base upstate. She has no idea when she's going to see them again. And Georgia knows, just _knows_ , that if she doesn't say something before she leaves, she's going to turn everything over in her mind and analyze it from every possible perspective when she's supposed to be learning instead.

She's sitting right across from him.

She could do it right now. Confess everything to his face, properly, sober, and then apologize and just back off. Give them both a chance to know where they stand.

It's the right thing to do, even if it is terrifying, and more than a little embarrassing to do in front of her father.

Georgia waits until the captain takes the offered dumpling, then finishes her appetizer just in time for her maki rolls to show up. Everyone else is talking around her, and she's trying to wait for a break in conversation where she can jump in, but Romanov and the captain are arguing about something and she can't possibly get a word in edgewise.

And then her rolls are gone, with only a trace of mango sauce left on her platter, and the waitress swings past with a whole array of ice cream bowls, and her dad is settling the bill and Romanov is collecting her jacket.

They're walking out the door, and there's no perfect moment left to wait for.

Georgia can't remember if she contributed a single word to the conversation while she was freaking out inside her own head.

***

They're nearly back to the Tower when an odd noise catches Georgia's attention.

It's like a weird scuffle, followed by panicked bird cheeping.

Her steps falter as she strains to follow where it might be coming from, and she lags behind the group without realizing it.

Looking back, it's kind of a perfect set-up for someone to kidnap her. She's distracted, none of the Avengers are paying attention to her, and her self-defense skills are still somewhat limited to Happy's sporadic boxing lessons.

She doesn't realize until later how lucky she is that the strange noises weren't someone setting her up for a world of trouble, but just a kitten with her head stuck in a tin can.

They've been walking in front of a row of brownstones, and Georgia can see the little cat body swaying wildly, trying to twist away from the can that it so brilliantly stuck its face into, down the little flight of stairs that leads to the basement apartment. She trots down the stairs and crouches in front of the kitten, grabs hold of the can and tucks one hand until its slight body, then gives a gentle tug.

The can comes off without much fuss, and the kitten underneath looks rumpled and unimpressed.

Georgia tosses the can back into the recycling bin that it clearly came out of, then stands up with kitten still in hand. She looks at it for a long moment, then knocks on the apartment door right in front of her.

A man in a bathrobe and dark bags under his eyes answers.

"Excuse me, is this your cat? I just found it outside your door."

The guy shakes his head slowly. "Try upstairs," he suggests, then shuts the door in her face.

Well, fine.

She's thanking the upstairs apartment dwellers for their time when her dad and the others rush back into sight.

Her dad is nearly bursting at the seams with his anger.

He manages to keep it all in on the rest of the way back to the Tower, but keeps a half-pace behind her the whole way, like an overzealous bodyguard who doesn't dare to let her out of his sight. Romanov and the captain are taking point.

Georgia is still clutching the kitten, who seems pleased enough to be going along for the ride.

They pass through the side door into the Tower that her dad likes to use instead of the lobby, when he feels like he should be inconspicuous, and the elevator doors shut behind them before he finally lets loose.

“For the love of God, _tell_ someone when you’re going to go wandering off!” he shouts. Georgia ducks her head, but not soon enough to avoid seeing the awkward expression cross the captain’s face. Oh, good. Now she’s being scolded like errant child in front of him. Romanov is clearly watching them out of the corner of her eye.

“Sorry,” she says. She knows it’s not nearly enough to calm him down.

“Sorry won’t bring you back if something happens to you!”

“I _know._ ” She does know. She knows that it wasn’t apologies that brought her father back from Afghanistan, but intelligence and daring. She knows that, for all her brilliance, she’s not as brave as he is.

“You were gone for five minutes before we realized you weren’t behind us!”

“Is that my fault, or yours?”

His breath seems to catch in his throat, and he stares at her until the elevator stops and the doors slide open. The apartment feels too quiet in the wake of his anger and the noise of the Manhattan streets. Romanov slips into the kitchen, and the captain doesn't move any further than the foyer by the elevator, like he's ready to make a dive for it at any moment.

Georgia rubs the kitten's head with careful fingertips, eliciting a soft, rattling purr from her. Romanov re-enters the living room with a small bowl of water just as Georgia sets the cat down on the floor, and the skinny little thing wanders over and laps up a drink. The redhead steps over to the captain, and they both disappear into the elevator with only a glance shared between them.

She watches as her dad takes three weary steps over to the couch and slumps onto it. "I'm not mad at you," he offers eventually. "You just scared me."

"I can take care of myself," Georgia says, perhaps a little snippily, but she's pretty tired of being treated like she's a helpless child. She's not.

They both watch the little grey kitten, who has crept over to her dad's feet and is tucking herself up against the hard line of his shoe, wrapping herself in a tight circle, nose to paws.

"I trust you to take care of yourself against demanding boys and the idiots in the press," he says, once the kitten has closed her eyes and her sides rise and fall with long, slow breaths.

It's not an apology, but she knows he's trying to make her see things from his perspective. Ever since Afghanistan, the threats against their family have been bigger and scarier than even a billionaire could be reasonably expected to expect. She's not superpowered, she doesn't have a suit, and frankly, it's kind of amazing that she's been basically left alone for so long.

"I could probably defend myself against the sorts of kidnappers that might try to pluck me off the street, too, if someone were willing to just _teach_ me something."

Her dad stares down at the little kitten curled determinedly against his shoe like it's a soft pillow and not firm leather, then gives a short nod. Georgia bites the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning at him. He looks torn about the whole thing; there's no reason to shove her joy in his face.

"You're keeping this damn thing, aren't you?"

"That's no way to speak to a lady," Georgia says, stepping forward and picking up the sleeping kitten, who simply rolls into the heat of her body. "Come on, Ada. Let's have FRIDAY get some things delivered for you."

"Georgie," her dad says, just as she reaches the doorway. Georgia pauses, turns back to look at him. His eyes are infinitely more tired than they were a short hour ago, and there's a pang of guilt in her chest for making him look that way, even if she never meant to.

"I'm sorry," she says, because one of them has to say it.


	3. Chapter Three

FRIDAY has the cat things delivered just in time for them to be packed up for Boston. A vet appointment is arranged for later that afternoon at a place not too far from the MIT campus, and Ada is first put into a crate, then a car, and then the private plane waiting on the tarmac.

The third floor apartment is small in comparison to the Tower penthouse, and much quieter as well, but there's no one here judging her for not being strong enough, and only her professors to impress. Life in Cambridge is much less demanding than being in Manhattan, for all that completing her PhD ought to be complicated. Academics is something that Georgia understands. Relationships have always been a struggle.

There's one quiet week where Georgia tackles her classes again and Ada settles into life as a pet and not a stray. (Georgia only has to sacrifice one end of her sofa to Ada’s claws before the little grey menace learns to use the scratching post that’s set up only four feet away. She considers this a rousing success.) They're sitting together on the couch, laptop balanced on Georgia's right knee while Ada drapes herself across the left, when there's a brisk, quick knock at the door.

"Hello," Georgia says cheerfully when she opens it to find her father standing on the other side. "Did you get lost going upstate?"

"Ha ha. Wherever did you get that quick wit from?"

"I hear my dad's pretty fast on his feet, but I've never seen it."

He shoulders his way into the apartment, gives it a quick look-around but doesn't say a word about how her textbooks are strewn across the coffee table, how there's a pile of dirty dishes she keeps meaning to wash in the sink, how there's a dull thumping coming from the apartment upstairs, whose inhabitants seem to spend a lot of their time in bed. Ada twines herself around his ankles, because cats like no one more than someone who ignores them entirely.

"What's your schedule like for tomorrow?"

Tomorrow is Friday, which means she has a two-hour lab timeslot followed by a study group that she only attends for the social aspect. 

"Good. Skip it."

"What? I can't skip my lab time. The profs get all uppity if you don't show up for your scheduled timeslot."

"You have a lab at home. A better one. Let someone else take the time. It's like charity!" He's very enthusiastic about the idea.

"Is there a good reason for me not to do my assignments?"

It turns out that is he, in fact, taking a detour on his way to the Avengers HQ, and has stopped by in Cambridge in order to fetch her for a weekend of self-defense training. Georgia takes exactly seventeen minutes to pack up some clothes, a few textbooks, her laptop and her cat before she's locking the apartment door behind them.

What bliss, to be away from the upstairs neighbours’ thumping.

What would be a three hour drive by car is only twenty minutes in the Quinjet, which is still a novel experience beyond that of flying in a private jet, to which Georgia is well-accustomed. The Quinjet flies faster and quieter, and can hover into a landing like a helicopter. It doesn't have luxurious leather chairs, only utilitarian flip-down seats along the sides. It's also loaded with guns and missiles, which the Stark jet is notably lacking. It makes her feel like she's going on a secret mission in an exotic locale, even if she intellectually knows she's being safely transported upstate.

The only things that Georgia knows about the Avengers HQ are the few details that she has wheedled out of her father in the past, as well as some sly digging in the Stark Industries mainframe before FRIDAY caught on and cut her off. She knew enough to get a parcel there, once upon a time, but she never knew how it was built, all sleek and low, surrounded by thick forest and peaceful meadows.

The grass under the Quinjet blows out flat, a little crop circle of their own making. Georgia steps carefully down the extended ramp, Ada's carrier firmly in hand. There are people in tidy grey jumpsuits walking purposefully around the building, blending in with the metal-and-glass architecture. Georgia is wearing a slouchy pink t-shirt and a pair of pale-wash boyfriend jeans, and when she catches a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a window, she pops against the background. Stealthy, she is not.

Her father keeps pace with her, towing her little suitcase behind him. A few of the jumpsuited people nod at him as they pass by, silent but respectful. People have always paid Tony Stark attention, but it’s different here. Somehow more serious, less… shallow.

Someone else swings out of a doorway as they walk past, clad in black cargo pants and a clingy grey t-shirt with the Avengers 'A' stencilled over his left pec. Sam Wilson grins at them both, teeth bright.

"New recruit?"

"Our very first legacy," her dad replies, ruffling her hair. “Well, maybe  _ I’m _ the first legacy, but here she is anyway.” Georgia tries to scowl at him, but finds herself extending a hand to Sam instead.

"It's nice to finally meet you." And it is. She's under the impression that Sam is here because he impressed the captain, and she trusts his judgement. She has also heard rumour of a jetpack-boosted pair of wings, and she has plans to see them in action at least once. She thinks she knows how she’d design such a thing, and she wants to see if the rough sketches in her brain match what the American military cooked up.

His palm is dry and his handshake is crisply professional, but the smile never drops off his face.

"We're glad to finally have you here. What took so long?"

It's hard to fight the grimace that wants to cross her face, but Starks are born into the spotlight and never give away more than they mean to. "The trip is just so inconvenient," she jokes, and Sam seems to take her at face value. At any rate, he doesn't press the issue.

He walks with them to a series of hallways that appear to be the dormitories, or barracks, or whatever military-esque apartments are called. One of the hallways has the doors spaced a little further apart, and her dad opens one of them to reveal a bedroom inside.

"It's not much, but  _ someone  _ wouldn't let me recreate the Tower penthouse."

She gets the impression that the captain put his foot down about opulence in a military base.

She's given twenty minutes to get Ada set up, and then they're heading to the mess for a bite of dinner. Georgia's wary about wandering around in her civilian clothes and so blatantly advertising how she doesn't belong here, but her dad shows no signs of changing out of his suit, and Sam leans against the corridor wall and pokes away at his phone, so he's not getting changed either.

The mess hall features three lines of cafeteria tables and sturdy blue chairs. There's a hot buffet and an overly-muscled guy at the end of the line, weighing trays and swiping cards. He's the most terrifying lunch lady Georgia has seen in her entire life.

She pushes her little tray along the line and scoops some pulled pork onto a bun, and heaps a pile of Caesar salad next to it. There's some jiggly Jello that looks like it belongs in on a hospital menu, but also a heap of pudding cups, one of which finds its way onto her tray. The burly guy eyes her suspiciously before swiping her father's card for both their meals. She wonders what kind of trouble he thinks she can get into at the buffet line-up, when she's bracketed by Iron Man and the Falcon. 

There's an empty table that's been freshly wiped down, on the far side of the room. She slips her tray onto the table and slides into one of the chairs, hyper-aware of Sam Wilson doing the same across from her, watching her father out of the corner of her eye. They both dig into their meals with no hesitation, and Georgia pokes her fork at the salad.

The food is pretty good, for a cafeteria with navy blue lunch trays and a linoleum floor. She supposes that her dad might have had a hand in that; for all that he loves Burger King and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, he’s very adamantly against bad food.

Georgia eats all the salad and most of the pulled pork sandwich, watches the impressively fit Falcon polish off a pile of bunless meat, three cornmeal muffins and two pudding cups. Her dad peels the lid off a chocolate cup and hands it to her without looking, and Georgia takes it gingerly and gives it a few licks.

"So," Sam Wilson says, once he's done refuelling. "Tell me the most embarrassing Tony Stark story you know." He's leaning across the table at her, propped up on his elbows, grin wide.

"PR made me sign a statement saying never to share that story," she says blithely. It's not entirely false. She just knows better than to blab about anything that might come back and bite her dad in the ass later on. Even the most harmless things could be spun by the right person and become impossible to shake. Risking a reputation for a funny anecdote was never worth it.

The quip works though, because he just laughs and nods his head at her like she's said some sage thing. She can't quite stop herself from sliding her eyes to her dad, who's watching her with an expression she can't put her finger on. The corner of his mouth twitches, just a little, but his eyes are dark and serious.

"No," he says, waving a hand at the Falcon. "We can probably trust this one. I'm curious, what's your worst 'me' story?"

This is unprecedented.

She fumbles. Her mind blanks for a long second, and then she reels into an elaborate storytelling of the time Tony Stark found himself at a fundraising gala, his daughter on his arm as his date, only to encounter a grand total of three scorned ex-girlfriends in attendance, who all felt that he owed them for a variety of slights against their persons. Georgia had been twelve at the time, and she distinctly remembers the look she had given her father by the time the third one made herself known, because it had been her first gala appearance as an  _ adult _ and all these women were  _ ruining it. _

She's rather proud of herself. She doesn’t often get to flex her society skills, and it only takes her a minute to fall back into the familiar skin of extroverted enthusiasm. Sam Wilson is laughing his head off, and her dad, who knows precisely what happened, is goading her on to 'tell him the worst part. No, the  _ worst _ part.' It's the first time in a long time that Georgia has felt so at ease around someone new, and it's comforting even if she knows it's not something to get used to.

The Falcon is wiping tears from his eyes when a figure drops into the empty seat next to him.

"No one let me know the party had already started," Romanov says drily.

"And yet, you found us anyway,” Tony says, completely unrepentant. 

Romanov hums and quirks a lip at her dad, then faces Georgia. "I hear we have you for a weekend of fun."

"Is that what we're calling it now? I'm not sure I consider intense exercise and people trying to hurt me to be an enjoyable time."

"Oh, that sounds like the  _ best  _ sort of fun, to me.”

***

This is definitely not fun.

Georgia is face-down on the mat, Romanov standing somewhere above and behind her.

The baby agents in the gym are clearly trying to hide their laughter from her, and failing miserably. How fun, to watch the rich girl get pummelled into the ground.

"Is it okay if I stay here? Bring me my blanket, and my phone. This is my new bedroom. I've decided."

"Come on, Stark. Your dad's an old man and he can handle worse than this."

"Ugh," Georgia says, completely heartfelt.

They’ve been at it for nearly three hours, Romanov running her through a warm-up and drills for ages before actually putting the moves into practice. By the time Georgia was dumped onto the mat for the first time, her body was already beyond tired. Her cheek sticks, disgustingly, to the mat when she finally gets her knees under her and presses her body upwards. Her side aches where she's landed on it about a dozen times in a row, and her elbow is still a little numb from how she fell on it three tumbles ago.

Romanov is doing that thing where she watches so intently that Georgia can almost see her mind picking apart every single detail, every gesture, every word, and putting it all together to know her deepest truths. It's unnerving at the best of times, and Georgia is distinctly not at her best.

"Please say it's time for this to be over, now."

"Once more," Romanov says, sounding cheerful.

Georgia tries to ignore the little passel of junior agents who are so obviously watching her. She raises her fist, even though her arms are shaking, and tries to focus on Romanov on the other side of the mat. She’s forcibly spun in the opposite direction and in the middle of having her arm twisted around her back when she realizes that the junior agents have been joined by the captain. Her footing slips, just a little, and Romanov nails her to the mat again.

"Please," she says, hating the way her voice has dropped somewhere into pleading.

Romanov's knee eases off the small of her back. With a groan, Georgia gets to her feet again, rubs at her face and determinedly doesn't track a certain tall figure across the room.

"Go have a shower," Romanov says. Georgia takes the dismissal gladly, and refuses to think too hard about her oddly gentle tone of voice.

***

Georgia is draped across the narrow bed, nose in a book and idly watching Ada picking her way across the sheets to find a place she wants to curl up in. There's not a lot to do at the Avengers headquarters unless she wants to do it with either her father or the junior agents, so she's sequestered herself in the small, dark room. It’s not so bad; when she’s fully absorbed in her reading, she can’t even tell that she’s at HQ and not her apartment in Cambridge.

She is thirty pages in and Ada has wedged her way into the crease of Georgia's armpit,  happily purring her rattling little purr, when there's a brisk knock on the door.

"Sorry," Georgia says, when Ada gives her a supreme bitch-face for moving. "Keep my spot warm."

Romanov is standing on the other side of the door, bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. "Thirsty?" she asks, holding them up.

Georgia steps back and lets her in. There's one metal chair in the room that matches the small metal desk, and so Georgia sits back down on the bed so Romanov can take the chair.

The agent sets both glasses on the desk, cracks the bottle open, and pours a generous inch into the bottom of each. She hands one to Georgia, who takes it and gives it a little sniff.

"I thought Russian spies only drank vodka."

"Only because they've never had good tequila."

Georgia is a pretty big fan of tequila.

She leans forward and knocks her glass against Romanov's, then takes a good long sip. It's warm but doesn't burn on the way down, which she very much appreciates.

"Oh, hello." Ada has meandered her way over to the edge of the bed, and is craning her neck out towards their visitor. Romanov reaches out a pale hand and scritches Ada behind an ear, smiling softly at the little cat. "What's your name?"

"She's the Countess Ada Lovelace," Georgia says, feeling her face go a little hot with embarrassment. Romanov looks politely blank. "She wrote some of the first computer programming back in the 1800s, even if it didn't look like anything used today. She was kind of my childhood hero. I mostly just call the cat Ada."

Romanov hums thoughtfully, and gives Ada another head rub.

"I used to have a cat," she says, and Georgia is alarmed to realize that the spy is sharing personal information with her. It seems so unlikely that she can't quite wrap her mind around it. "Named Lilo. Mostly she just hung around the apartment building, and on the fire escape, but I fed her sometimes."

It doesn't sound so much like Romanov had a cat so much as she fed a stray that didn't realize who it was messing with.

Romanov takes a sip of her drink as well, and they settle into silence. Georgia drums her fingernails against the glass a couple of times before realizing how obnoxious it sounds, then forces her hands to still.

"Listen, Romanov, you don't have to babysit me," she says finally, because she's frankly uncomfortable with the whole situation and would prefer to go back to her book. "I'm not going to get lonely here, or anything. I'm pretty good with entertaining myself."

Romanov leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees, the glass dangling from her fingers. "Normally I'd talk my way around you until I got the answers I'm looking for, but let's try something different. Do you always call me Romanov?"

This is not how Georgia wanted to spend her evening.

"No?" she hedges.

"In your head, out loud, whatever. Am I Romanov?"

"Yes?"

"Why?"

"There's too many agents around to just call you 'Agent.'"

"You never thought to go with Natasha."

"It's a weird formality thing," Georgia says. "I didn't want to be too... familiar."

Romanov's eyebrows draw together just a fraction. "We lived in the same building for months. Are we not past being formal?"

"Well, what do you call me?" She says it with a lot of bravado, like she's not skirting the question at hand.

"Georgia."

"Oh."

There's a pause where Georgia dips her nose into her glass again, takes a sip of liquid courage, the old fallback for Starks of all generations.

"I don't mind if you call me Natasha."

She looks very sincere, like she honestly wouldn't mind it at all. Georgia can remember when she first came into their lives, dressed up as Natalie Rushmore, and the dozens of nicknames that her father bestowed upon her once he realized who she really was. For the life of her, Georgia can't quite recall if he ever just called her Natasha.

"Alright," she says finally.

They sit in silence for a little longer.

"I thought maybe we might be friends." Natasha swirls her drink, takes another sip. "The Avengers is stacked with men. Wanda’s here and she’s not bad company, but it's nice to have another woman around, you know?"

"I'm not staying here," Georgia reminds her. "I'll be heading back to Cambridge tomorrow evening."

"Give me your phone." Natasha extends a pale, delicate hand, and Georgia drops her phone into it. It's returned to her a moment later, a new contact entered. "Text me when you get bored at school."

On a whim, Georgia raises her phone and snaps a picture of Natasha, her hair loose and her face free of makeup, her glass held up near her face. She sets it as the contact picture, a soft illusion of a dangerous spy.

"You can text me too," she says hopefully. "When your missions are taking too long or the lunch guy finally snaps and knocks someone out for breathing on the salad bar."

Natasha laughs. "Trujillo? He'll be glad to hear he's still terrifying the newbies."

Georgia wonders if she’s truly a newbie, if she’ll be back again next weekend to let Natasha throw her repeatedly to the ground, if she’ll start building muscle and grit and one day find herself stepping into a mechanized suit that closes up around her like it’ll keep her safe in the face of aliens and demi-gods.

 

They sit and finish their drinks, then pour and finish another, tentatively feeling each other out for common ground. It's midnight by the time Natasha lets herself out of the room, and Georgia drags the blankets over herself and is out in a moment.

***

Somehow, Georgia makes it through the entirety of the next day without spotting the captain once. Natasha shows up at her door again and whisks her off for breakfast in the mess, then they spend some time working on the yoga mat before going for a long jog around the headquarters perimeter, while Natasha makes her notice everything and quizzes her on what’s seen. It’s nice to be in the fresh air, even if Georgia runs through a cloud of bugs once and has to stop to cough them out. Natasha makes her go through the throws from the day before, but it’s weirdly not so bad, even if she’s still sore.

She spends the afternoon with her dad, going through the hanger and doing some general inspections on the aircraft. There's technicians for it, but he likes to keep a personal eye on everything. They poke their heads into the engines and look at the data streams from the jets, looking for odd blips in efficiency that might indicate a problem.

And then she's packing up her suitcase and coaxing Ada into her carrier, and Natasha is joining them on the plane because she has some business to handle in Manhattan. They're waiting for the Quinjet to go through the pre-flight prep when the captain appears around the corner of the building. He's not in his uniform, but in dark blue sweats and a grey t-shirt that he still manages to make look good. Georgia's eyes dart towards the movement, and her brain has barely had time to register that it's him before her eyes are instinctively glancing away again.

She chooses to watch the pilot go over the jet, even though she knows that Natasha, standing immediately to her left, is watching the captain closely. She's so determinedly not looking at him that she nearly leaps out of her skin when she realizes that he's walked up to them.

"See you in a few days?" he asks Natasha, who nods.

Her dad is watching him too, now, but he's not saying anything, which is a Tony Stark powerplay if she's ever seen one. Georgia stares at the lettering painted on the side of the jet.

There's an awkwardly long silence, and then the captain sort of sighs. "Miss Stark?" he hedges.

Georgia slants her eyes over to him without moving her head.

Neither Natasha or her father make a sound.

"I just... I'd be very honoured if you were to permit me to contact you while you're at school."

She can't help it. Her whole head turns so she can stare at him in disbelief, straight-on.

"You want to contact me."

His face does this little grimace, but she thinks maybe it's aimed at himself and not at her. "Yes."

They both look at each other for a long moment, and then Georgia jerks her chin a little higher into the air. "Alright."

He blinks at her a couple times, like he's trying to process an unexpected answer. "Alright? Great. That's great. I'll... just, have a safe trip home." And he sticks his hand out.

Georgia looks down at his extended hand, the way his fingers curl incrementally back towards himself before reaching out again, committed to the gesture. She glances up at his face to see the sheer embarrassment written across it, ears turning pink like they did the morning after Thanksgiving.

She tucks her hand into his and doesn't so much shake it as give it a small squeeze before letting him go. His mouth quirks a little at the corner.

The pilot, bless her timing, declares that they're ready to go. They carry their belongings aboard, and Georgia straps Ada's carrier into one of the little flip-down seats, tucks her suitcase underneath so it's out of the way, and then leans back out the open doorway.

He's still standing there, patiently waiting for them to be on their way.

"Call me," Georgia says, suddenly feeling brave like she hasn't in a long time. She thinks maybe it's just adrenaline that’s been pumping through her ever since she first squared up against the Black Widow on the mat, but she will ride that chemical train to the end of the line. "Don't text."

He grins that wide grin, the one that fueled her attraction to him in the first place. "Absolutely." He pauses, and his cheeks go a bit darker. "What time do you think you'll be back in Cambridge?"

"Two hours." She thinks she's grinning back at him.

He checks his watch, nods. Georgia wiggles her fingertips at him in a way that is more ridiculous than seductive, and then retreats back into the jet to strap herself into the seat between Ada and Natasha. She feels positively  _ giddy _ .

"Don't tell me," Natasha says dryly.

"Especially don't tell me," her dad says from the seat opposite.

"Shut up," Georgia tells them happily.

***

She's back in her apartment in one hour, forty-seven minutes.

Georgia lets Ada out of her carrier, unpacks her suitcase, checks the fridge for something to eat, and refuses to check the time. She piles up her dirty clothes for the laundry service to take out the next morning, and heats up some leftover Thai food that's been lurking in her fridge for longer than she cares to admit.

She almost misses when her phone goes off, because the microwave is beeping loudly over it.

Georgia scrambles for her phone, swipes to accept the call, lifts it to her ear and says "Hello?" like she didn't see his name come up on the display.

"Hello, Miss Stark."

"Hello, Captain."

They're both quiet. Georgia bites her lip, then takes a guess. "It's alright if you call me Georgia."

"Yeah? Only if you call me Steve."

"I can do that." There's another pause, and Georgia thinks that maybe she's starting to understand what their problem has always been. "Have you eaten dinner yet? I just heated up some… I think this was drunken noodles, a week ago. Have you tried Thai food yet?"

He laughs a little self-deprecatingly. "I've eaten, but I've never really been one to turn down a meal. Especially not now. But Thai food, I think I had some, once. Something with noodles. I think it had ‘Thai’ in the name?”

"Pad thai, that's a good start," Georgia says, tucking her phone between ear and shoulder so she can lift her plate out of the microwave. "But it's like having the French fries of a culture, you know? It's kind of the most introductory food on the menu. Like California rolls at a Japanese restaurant. Let me know when you're in the city next, and I'll tell you the best places to go."

"Maybe you could come with me."

"Yeah, I'd like that."

***

The first phone call isn't all easy, and neither are the five that follow. There’s awkward silences when they stray into topics that feel out-of-bounds at first, until Georgia forces the uncomfortable feelings down and honestly tells him what it was like, growing up under the ever-watching eye of the media. They're still tip-toeing around each other in a way that makes Georgia realize that he was never ignoring her, not really, just that he didn't have any experience dating in this century and found it easier to retreat than to press the issue. She tries to break the silences when they get awkward with oddball tidbits about her classes, or something she saw in Cambridge, anything that doesn't have to do with the fact that he's still adjusting to the future or their relationship in any way.

And then the conversations start to flow a little easier. They talk on the phone at least twice a week, even if the timing sometimes shifts because of her study schedule or his mission requirements. Sometimes she orders takeout and he carries his mess tray back to his little room, and they Skype like they're having dinner together, even if she's eating curry and he's got meat and potatoes.

They aren't anything, not yet. They talk, and Georgia would be hard-pressed to produce another friendship that operates that same way that theirs does, but she's honestly glad for it. She remembers how she felt about him when he lived in the Tower, when she knew nothing about him except how his shoulders looked in a plain white t-shirt and what information was in his file, and realizes that she's learned more about him as a person in the last month than she ever knew in the year before.

Steve Rogers doesn't mind the stars-and-stripes suit, but he really enjoyed when they redesigned it to tactical navy without all the flashy extras. He wishes the physical library in the Avengers headquarters was more thoroughly stocked, because he can find books online but dislikes reading off a screen for hours at a time. He tells her stories about Bucky Barnes and the scrapes they used to find themselves in, both in Brooklyn and in Europe. He doesn't like to talk about the war, but Georgia has been reading about how vets tend to handle their past experiences, and she tries not to push him for details he isn't willing to give.

He likes the beef stew the mess serves on Mondays, but not the deep-fried fish fillets they serve on Fridays. He's been listening through Sam Wilson's music collection, and working through the list he keeps in his pocket. One night, he sets up  _ A New Hope _ on his laptop, and Georgia tosses it up on her television, and they watch it together.

 

She tells him about  _ The Martian _ , because now that he’s in the future, it might be fun to see how the future’s future is imagined. She orders him a physical copy and sends it to HQ, clearly labeled. She tells him about the other rich-and-famous kids that populate Manhattan, the ones she went to school with and partied with and dated, but how she never had someone who would back her up the way that Bucky did for him. 

 

They share little bits of themselves, one tiny piece at a time, until Georgia suddenly realizes that she probably knows more about Steven Rogers than anyone else in this century.

When Natasha texts Georgia, she often complains that Steve doesn't shut up about her. It's apparently very frustrating.

It's mid-December and the snow is falling softly outside her window. Steve says it's snowing at headquarters too. Georgia's got on some yoga pants and thick socks, and she and Ada are snuggled together in a blanket on the couch.

"Are you going back to Manhattan for Christmas?" Steve asks.

"Yeah. I have a couple exams next week, but as soon as those are over, I'll be heading back. Probably on the 19th."

"I'll see you then."

"I can't wait."

***

The airport is a blizzardy mess. The jet was due to land half an hour ago, but the weather is so rough that it's apparently running late. Georgia has ensconced herself in the VIP lounge with Ada. There are three other people there, two men and a woman who all appear to be working while they wait for their own flights.

There's not much to see out the window, and she can't see as far as she could twenty minutes ago. The storm's getting worse, and it's all pointing to a cancelled flight for her, even if the jet manages to land safely.

The airport attendant working in the lounge answers the phone behind the desk, then makes her way across the room to Georgia. "Miss Stark? Your plane has landed. However, the airport has just shut down all departures due to the inclement weather. Your pilot suggested that you return home for the night and you can fly out tomorrow, if conditions improve."

Ada will be furious about having to go out into the cold again.

"Of course. Is the pilot nearby? I'd like to speak with him before I go."

"She's just this way."

Georgia picks up the cat carrier and follows the attendant. There's a small room that the pilots can use the freshen up between flights, and Natasha is standing in front of a mirror, brushing some order back into her hair after being windswept outside.

"Natasha! I didn't realize you were in New York."

The redhead gives her that all-knowing look. "I wasn't."

Georgia is opening her mouth to ask her what she means by that, when the bathroom door swings open and Steve steps out.

He's got on a woolly green sweater over his khakis, and the dark shade brings out a whole new colour of blue in his eyes. Georgia is vaguely aware of the attendant slipping out of the room, but mostly she's focused on how her mouth doesn't seem to want to link up with her mind.

"Merry Christmas, Georgia," he says, beaming at her, and her brain kicks back in.

"Merry Christmas! How long have you been keeping this a secret from me?"

He's crossing the little room to her. "Only a week," he promises. "Your dad figured we might as well fetch you on the way."

"That meddler." Steve's close enough that he stops in front of her, and Georgia pushes up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. He's warm, for all that he was outside in the snowstorm a few minutes ago, and she allows her fingers to rest on his forearm just a moment too long.

Natasha watches them through the mirror's reflection, that little half-smile tugging at her mouth.

"Well, we better find a hotel for the night," Natasha says, her hair all back into place. "Unless you have space at your place for all of us."

"There's the couch," Georgia says doubtfully. "It'd be too short for you, I think," she directs to Steve. "But..."

"We can get a hotel," he says, because they've Skyped enough that he's learned how her face settles when she's feeling uncertain.

"Well, the couch would be fine for Natasha. And I've got a queen bed."

Steve doesn't say anything, just slants his gaze over to Natasha after a moment.

"I've slept in far worse places, and I wouldn't mind seeing your apartment. Hotels will probably be all booked up with this storm, anyway," Natasha says. She's so ambivalent about the whole thing, but Georgia knows that it's an act, that Natasha knows what this means for Georgia and Steve.

"You really should leave the hotel rooms to people who don't have anywhere else to stay," Georgia reasons. Steve still looks conflicted, but he gives her a tentative nod anyway.

"If you're sure," he says.

"I'm sure."

***

The taxi ride is slow, the driver picking his way carefully through the messy streets. Georgia leaves him a huge tip and tells him to drive safe. The snow is practically blowing sideways, and she hopes there's not too many other people who need to get home before the cabbie can go home as well.

Ada sulks in her carrier.

Her apartment isn't particularly organized, because she's just finished exams and frankly let the whole place go to hell while she was busy studying. But Natasha just drops her duffel by the couch and takes a look around.

"Are you sure you're a Stark? This place is downright normal."

Georgia laughs. "I've never quite felt the need to surround myself with technology the way Dad does. Trust me, this is still about a hundred times nicer than most of the apartments that graduate students end up in."

Steve is still clutching his own duffel, looking warily around from his spot by the door. He's seen the inside of her apartment before, mostly in the background when they've talked, but he's never seen it in person. He's also never seen her bedroom.

Georgia sheds her coat and scarf, then toes off her boots. She wraps a hand around the duffel strap and gives it a tug, and he lets it go. "I'll put this away. Help yourself to a drink, maybe see if there's anything decent to eat in the fridge."

She takes the bag into her room and takes a minute to frantically organize a few things. She yanks her bedside table drawer open and makes sure that her vibrator is tucked under a book and hidden away, then sweeps up a forgotten pair of jeans and straightens out the bedcovers. It's certainly not perfect, but it'll have to do.

She texts her dad, just a quick message to say that he shouldn't expect her until tomorrow, and almost instantly he sends her back a string of emojis that are just not worth responding to.

Natasha has helped herself to a glass of wine, and Steve is pouring himself some water when she emerges from the bedroom. Georgia pokes around in the freezer and pulls out a frozen lasagna that has been sitting there for months.

"I think whoever originally stocked my fridge thought I might be having people over more often than this."

But the oven is preheated and the lasagna slid in, and an hour later she's plating hearty portions of melted cheese and tender noodles.

"My frozen lasagna has never tasted like this," Natasha says after the first bite, sounding suspicious.

"I imagine your frozen lasagna also doesn't cost fifty dollars a tray," Georgia counters. Steve chokes a little on his mouthful.

"Someone bought you a fifty-dollar lasagna that you likely weren't going to eat?" He's clearly offended, like he wants to take the leftovers and feed them directly to his hungry ten-year-old self. Georgia serves him another portion, and he devours that as well.

They finish dinner and their drinks, then migrate to the couch to watch a movie and wrap themselves in blankets. The snow still falls silently outside the windows, but it's cozy being wedged between Natasha and Steve. She tries not to lean too hard towards Steve's direction, even when he lays one arm across the back of the couch, fingers tantalizingly close to her hair.

They're all fighting yawns by the time the credits roll. Natasha kicks them off the couch so she can fluff her designated pillow and lay out her blankets, then dismisses them from the room so she can turn off the lights. Steve, being a gentleman, lets Georgia have first crack at the bathroom to wash up before bed. She scrubs at her face and gives her teeth an unusually long brushing before pulling her kimono wrap around her and returning to the bedroom.

He's standing by her dresser, a pair of sweatpants in hand and a shaving kit in the other. There's a few pictures clustered on the dresser top, and he's peering at each one with real curiosity, but stands up straight when she comes back in.

"I don't mind," Georgia says, more airily than she feels.

"Is this your mother?" Steve asks, gesturing towards one of the photos near the back.

"Mmhmm." She drops her laundry in the basket and sets her phone onto its mat to charge. The room is only lit by one soft lamp, and the whole thing feels a little too romantic, a little too close for where their relationship is actually at.

Steve takes the hint for what it is, and disappears into the bathroom himself. Georgia stares at the photo for a long moment after he’s gone, at the face that she only knows from still images. Her parents met at a party where they were both drunk, and she’s pretty certain that the only reason her mother didn’t abort her was for a share of the Stark fortune. It’s been a fact of her life for so long that it normally doesn’t bother her, but tonight she takes the frame and hides it behind the photo of her father holding her five-year-old self on his shoulders so she doesn’t have to look at it anymore.

 

Georgia climbs into bed and sticks close to one side, leaves Steve plenty of blankets and a good pillow. It's a long ten minutes until he comes back in, and she tries not to meet his eyes when he approaches the bed.

They've been talking so much over the last few weeks, but this is uncharted territory, something outside the bounds of their comfort. Georgia can almost hear him debating whether or not to try and find alternate sleeping arrangements in the way his feet shuffle on the floor, so she reaches over and tosses the blankets back invitingly.

"Get in before your toes freeze off," she demands, channeling Stark arrogance. The lit lamp is on her side of the bed, so she gives the chain a yank and plunges them into darkness.

He feels like gravity when he's finally in-between the sheets, like the very core of her is drawn to him. The blankets, normally so cold for so long when it's just her, heat up fast with his presence.

She's never been comfortable laying on her back, and turning to face away from him seems oddly rude, so Georgia rolls to her left side, facing him. She tries not to watch too closely as he draws the blankets up the way he likes them around his neck, getting all of his shoulders underneath in the warmth. It's charming,  _ too _ charming. God, she wants to touch him.

Steve gives one last wriggle and then lays still.

Georgia's eyes are adjusting to the dark, and the bit of light coming in from the street outside is enough to illuminate the profile of his face. He's staring straight at the ceiling, and she thinks his hands are laced over his stomach.

"I know this isn't what you'd planned for," she whispers into the safety of darkness. "But I'm really glad you're here."

Steve huffs out a soft laugh. "It certainly wasn't what I'd expected for today. Your dad is going to have my head when we get to New York."

"Nah, he hasn't been allowed a say in my love life since I was twenty. I made him sign a contract."

He doesn't laugh at that, but he sounds thoughtful when he asks, "Am I part of your love life?"

They've really never talked about this. They talk, a lot, but they've skirted this topic the whole time. Georgia never expected it to come up once they were already in bed.

"I mean, I would be glad to consider you part of my love life," she hedges.

"I would, too."

It's strange that she can suddenly take a deep breath, like a band of pressure has been eased off her ribcage.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't been remotely into anyone else since the Avengers first came around the Tower a year ago."

"My first kiss in this century was Natasha, during a mission to keep attention off of us."

"Well, as long as it hasn't been your only kiss," Georgia says, because she can want Steve for herself, but she would never deny someone having good, healthy relationships with other people before falling into a relationship with her.

He's silent, and his foot twitches under the blankets.

"Easy way to solve that," Georgia says quietly, and reaches out to touch the curve of his jaw. His head tips towards her, and she leans over just enough to touch her lips to his.

It's simple and lasts only for a moment, and as soon as it's over, she retreats to her side of the bed. Steve is still looking at her, but she can't see him well enough to read the expression on his face.

But he moves one of his hands off his stomach and slips it through the sheets until he's holding her hand. She falls asleep with her fingers cupped in his wide palm, and her head just edging onto his pillow.

***

Morning brings the scrape of snowplows and the start of a sunrise that shines through the windows. Georgia groans and tugs the blankets up to her nose, scrunching her eyes shut to keep the worst of the light out. At least the bed is toasty warm. She doesn't think she'll ever leave it.

She's still asleep enough that when her brain registers the existence of another body in the bed with her, she's basically okay with it if it means staying so nicely warm. She squints one eye open and peers at him, taking in the rumpled blonde hair and the slight glimpse of shoulder edging out of the sheets.

He's beautiful.

Georgia wriggles her way a little closer to him and closes her eyes again. Just for a minute longer.

***

She wakes up when the mattress shifts a little.

There are lines imprinted across his back where the sheets bunched a little under him, and the pants he slept in ride a little low. He's sitting at the edge of the bed, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck.

Georgia reaches over and brushes her fingertips against the spot where his hips emerge from his pants. The skin there is smooth and horribly tempting. He twists to glance down at her, and Georgia yawns in reply. He grins.

"Sleep alright?"

"Mmhmm. Come back under the covers; it's better with you in here."

"It's eight o'clock," he chides her. "Time to get back to the airport."

Georgia groans, but pushes herself upright once he's left the room. She catches sight of herself in the mirror and grimaces at the way her hair is tangled over her left ear. There's the sudden noise of the shower running, and she firmly doesn't think too hard about Steve Rogers being naked and wet in the next room over.

With kimono draped over her shoulders, she wanders into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Natasha is already up, fresh-faced and alert. There's a pot already started, so Georgia pours herself a mug and stirs in a scant spoonful of sugar. She only looks a little when the shower stops and the bathroom door opens, only catches a glimpse of Steve's hair all wet and how his shirt sticks to him just a bit.

She takes her turn in the shower as well, and they all gather up their belongings again. The cabbie who picks them up drives like there's no snow at all, even though the roads are still slick since the snowplows passed by. But they make it to the airport without incident, and the Quinjet is equipped with special heating elements to melt all the snow off in poor weather, so they only have to wait a short while before they can board the jet.

Natasha straps herself into the pilot's chair, and Steve takes the co-pilot's spot. Georgia and Ada take a couple seats in the back. It isn't long before the jet is in the air, and then they're on their way to Manhattan.

The trip from Cambridge to New York isn't long to start, and the Quinjet has the extra burst of speed that knocks another fifteen minutes off. The helipad on Stark Tower has been cleared of snow, and they set down in the circle with ease. They've barely landed before Georgia is unhooking Ada's carrier and bounding down the ramp into her father's arms.

"You let that little storm hold you back?" he teases.

Georgia hugs him tight, and he holds her back just as hard.

Steve comes down the ramp holding both her bag and his own, Natasha behind him. He won't quite meet her dad's eyes, which makes her dad eye him suspiciously.

"Nothing happened," Georgia mutters, grabbing him by the elbow and tugging back towards the indoors.

Steve and Natasha both have their own rooms at the Tower, so they get on the elevator instead of staying on the penthouse floor. Ada stretches and digs her claws into the living room carpet, then contentedly curls up on an armchair. Georgia follows her dad to the kitchen for another coffee, because neither one of them operates too well without the optimum amount of caffeine in their systems.

"You'll let me know if I have to put the suit on," is all her dad says about it.

"I'll put the suit on myself," Georgia promises. "If it ever comes to that."

***

There are four days until Christmas, and Georgia spends them roaming Manhattan. The streets are teeming with people carrying shopping bags, and every storefront is decorated with garlands and red bows and stylish Christmas trees. Sometimes she goes on her own, to pick up little presents for her family. Sometimes she catches Steve when he's not involved with anything, and takes him along with her. He tries her favourite Thai place and then insists they order another round to take home with them. She takes him to F.A.O. Schwarz to gawk at all the toys and the lunatic parents who have maybe forgotten what Christmas is meant to be about. Steve breaks up three separate near-fights between parents simply by being broad and polite.

She buys herself a bit of new clothing; nothing too flashy, just simple, classic pieces that suit her well. She arranges for Pepper to catch a Broadway play that she keeps talking about but hasn’t made time to actually see. For her dad, she's been spending her spare time at school creating super-tiny, functional arc reactors that she's mounted on cufflinks. They're utterly ridiculous and she knows that he'll love them.

There's already a bottle of premium tequila wrapped up for Natasha, and a nice new bed for Ada.

Georgia has no idea what to get for Steve.

She sort of burned the big gift up front, even if he's never mentioned it to her. Anything else seems trite and uninspired in comparison.

They explore the city together, and Georgia counts down the days until it will be Christmas morning and she will have nothing to give to Steve.

***

She wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea. It takes a couple phone calls, and a lot of reassurances that she is who she says she is, but she thinks she's got it. Sleep comes easier after that.

***

Christmas Eve finds the assembled Avengers gathered at the bar in the Tower penthouse, each holding a tumbler of whiskey. Pepper is there too, having finally broken free of her responsibilities for the day, and Georgia can't help but notice how much easier it all feels compared to Thanksgiving.

The decorators had come and set up a glittering tree by the window, and strung garlands across every available surface. There's a ball of mistletoe hanging in one of the doorways, and the formal dining table is already set for the big meal tomorrow. It's all very festive. Georgia polishes off her whiskey and switches out for eggnog, which she only finds palatable once she's already had a few drinks.

She offers the glass to Steve when he peers at it, and he takes a sip from the side she hasn't drank from. "It's good," he says, and Georgia pours him one of his own.

There's something incredible about sharing her favourite parts of the holiday with him. The stupid eggnog, the bowl of nuts that her dad insists is traditional even though he dislikes having to work for his food, turning all the lights down low so that the tree is the main source of light in the room. It's like magic.

Georgia's feeling good but not anywhere close to drunk when she tucks her hand into the crook of Steve's elbow. He doesn't jump at the contact, just draws his arm closer to his body so her hand is wedged firmly between his elbow and his side. Georgia keeps sipping at her drink while her captured fingers curl into the warm crease of his arm.

Her dad is the first to leave the party, having woken up at four that morning to keep working on his latest project, and he takes Pepper with him. Natasha makes her excuses shortly thereafter, with no amount of subtlety.

It's just the two of them left, in the glow of the Christmas tree.

There's a bit of awkward push-and-pull until they're both seated on the curvy sofa in front of the tree. There's been a steady influx of wrapped presents tucked underneath it over the last few days, colourful wrapping paper and big bows perched atop boxes. There's a house rule that no one is allowed to touch the gifts until Christmas morning, because Georgia and her father both have a bad habit of shaking boxes and making wild guesses that are correct often enough to drive Pepper crazy.

"I don't think I've ever had a Christmas quite like this one," Steve says into the quiet.

"Nothing quite as ridiculous as Stark Christmas, huh?"

"Nothing quite as incredible," he corrects with a smile. "You Starks just draw everybody in. You make space for the people who matter to you. I never had much of that, beyond my mother and Bucky."

"They'd be glad you've found it again," Georgia says, hoping that she's not treading on dangerous ground.

But there's a soft smile on his face. "Yeah, I think so too."

She can almost see him hesitate, but then he tucks his arm around her shoulders and brings her in close to his side. Georgia balances her nearly-empty cup a little precariously on the armrest, then wraps her arm around his middle. He smells like bar soap and a dab of cologne, his acknowledgement of the special occasion, although she thinks she prefers his scent when it's just the soap. The knit of his sweater is comforting under her cheek.

"I never said thank you."

Georgia tips her head back so she can see his face. Steve is focused on the tree, and he is studiously not looking at her.

"For what?"

"Everything. Letting me into your home last year, right after your nearly lost your father again. Treating me like a normal person. Finding all those things, all those things I thought I'd never see again." His eyebrows draw together, and he swallows hard. "I think I'd forgotten what she looked like. And then suddenly I had a photograph again. It meant a lot to me. It means a lot."

"It just seemed like the right thing to do," Georgia says, feeling her cheeks go hot with embarrassment. "I figured anyone with the money and the connections could make it happen for you. I don't know why SHIELD didn't."

"Maybe they would have, eventually. But they didn't. You did."

He keeps looking at the tree, and maybe it's just the dark and the flickering lights, but she thinks his eyes look a bit wet.

"I certainly never treated you like a normal person," Georgia says, a little grumpily. "I meant to. It didn't exactly work out."

Steve huffs out a laugh. "Well, maybe you acted a bit like a schoolgirl with a crush," he teases. "But you never expected me to be Captain America all the time, or uphold some ridiculous 1940s standard that really never existed, you know?"

"Dad thinks you never swear."

"Your dad forgets I was a soldier, and that I grew up in Brooklyn besides."

Georgia giggles into his shoulder.

"I didn't mean to ignore you, afterwards. I'm sorry that I did. I wasn't sure what to say to you about it," Steve says quietly. "Natasha said I was an idiot for not calling you as soon as I figured out who it was from. I think I made excuses to myself; if you had wanted me to know, you would've written a letter with the box or something."

"It was meant to be your birthday gift," Georgia says. "There wasn't meant to be a letter because I would've just handed it to you."

"Ah." It's thoughtful, like Steve is incorporating this information into his existing knowledge, filing it all away in his mind.

"I'm glad you liked it all, at any rate."

"I did," Steve promises, then tips his head and looks down at her. She's moving before she even really thinks about it, cranes her neck a little more to meet him halfway when his mouth drops to hers.

Georgia has thought a lot about what it might be like to make out with Steve Rogers. Somehow, she never quite got around to imagining how her heart might react.

He slides one hand along her jaw until he's cupping her head under her ear, his broad palm hot against her skin. Georgia clutches his sweater at his sides and kisses him with an open mouth, breathes in the air that he's panting out. They're twisted around each other and it's really not comfortable, but she wouldn't move an inch for the world.

She thinks her pulse has hit a new high point.

Their mouths are slick against each other when Georgia drapes her leg over his lap. Steve's hands tighten on her for a brief second, then relax. She's about to ask him what's wrong when she feels it.

His khakis don't do anything to hide the fact that he's hard and pressing against her thigh.

Georgia grabs him by the ears and yanks his head back down to her. She can feel the exact moment he reacts to her leg rubbing slowly against him, because his breath catches in his throat. She keeps kissing him, and even though she's always thought it was weird, she keeps her eyes open so she can watch the way his face twitches in reaction, trying desperately to keep hold of himself.

They only spend a few minutes tangled together like that, with Georgia teasing and Steve struggling to keep himself under control, before he presses a hand to her shoulder and puts some space between them. His hair is a disaster from her fingers, and his sweater is bunched up enough that she can see an inch of skin above his belt. He's breathing hard, with his forehead rested against hers.

"I just need a second," he says, and it's unbearably adorable.

"Tell me what you want, tonight," Georgia whispers.

Steve gazes at her, searching for the right answer in her expression.

"Look, either you can go back to your room and jerk off, or we can go down the hall to my room, where we could handle the situation in a variety of ways ranging from cold shower to whatever you want."

His eyes close, and his chest rises and falls with a deep breath. "I've never done this," he admits.

"You might want to be more specific. It would really help me out."

Steve chuffs a breathless little laugh. "On the tour, there was one girl that I spent some time with. Mostly in dressing rooms and empty train compartments. But she was saving herself for marriage, and it never got past... well, touching each other. Under our clothes. And then in Europe there wasn't much time for anything. And it's been too strange to chase anything here, now."

Georgia isn't sure she's made a contingency plan for if Steve were a virgin.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I am absolutely not a virgin. If that matters to you."

Steve shakes his head, meets her eyes again. "No, of course not."

"Well, good. In that case, you may set the pace, if you like. You just have to tell me what you want."

He exhales hard.

He takes her hand and eases her off the couch, catches her empty eggnog glass when it wobbles and slides off the armrest. He stands up with her and twines his fingers with hers, takes another breath. Georgia watches his face, and she thinks maybe she can see the decision made.

They tiptoe down the hallway to her bedroom. The penthouse is by no means small, but her dad and Pepper are still only two rooms down. Georgia shuts the door behind them and turns the lock, and turns to look at him.

Steve sits down at the edge of her bed, looking around with interest. She could almost believe his polite curiosity if it wasn't for the way his pants are still straining.

Georgia grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head in one smooth motion, and his eyes are instantly locked on her again.

It's very gratifying.

"Let me know what you need," she whispers, straddling his lap and bracing her knees on the bed. "Questions, or whatever."

"Brassieres used to be a lot more pointy, did you know?” is what he says, conversationally, since he’s kind of eye-level with her tits. Georgia rolls her eyes, but then his hands are hot around her waist. The span of his reach is kind of ridiculous, and Georgia can't deny she likes the way it makes her feel.

They kiss for a while longer before Georgia dips her fingers under his shirt and draws it up slowly. Steve leans back and lets her tug it over his head, and then grins at her when she simply presses her hands flat to his chest and stares.

"This is ridiculous," Georgia says, trying to sound calm but hearing the incredulity in her voice anyway. "I refuse to believe this."

"Take all the time you need to process. I'll keep myself entertained," he says, then leans down and mouths at the swell of her breasts over her bra.

"Unh," Georgia says, letting her head drop back. He deftly unhooks her bra and slips it down her arms, dropping it to the floor next to them. He rolls them onto the bed properly, and Georgia finds herself laying on her back, looking up at him.

He seems happy to track his mouth over her breasts and stomach, so Georgia digs her fingers into his hair and just hangs on for the ride. He eventually pulls back, hands going to his belt. Georgia watches his movements with interest, then pops the button on her jeans.

Steve unbuckles his belt and pauses over his pants button.

The sound of her zipper in the room seems extraordinarily loud, especially when it's followed by his.

Georgia shimmies out of her jeans, and then she's left only in her underwear, a slate grey thong. Steve's pants are unzipped and hanging open, but he seems wary about taking the next step. Catching his eyes, Georgia draws her knees up just a little, then lets them fall open.

His eyes jerk down to the crux of her spread thighs, and then his hands fumble with his pants until they're on the ground too.

She draws him down until he's stretched out on top of her, his chest pressing hard against her tits. Georgia wraps a leg around one of his to keep him close, then closes her eyes when he kisses her again.

His cock is hard against her, and he's rutting a little bit. His back and ass flex under her hands, so she squeezes to encourage him. Steve pants in her ear, nothing in particular, just breathless wonderment.

"If you're interested," Georgia whispers, "I am totally down to fuck."

Steve's hips stutter against hers.

"And I'm clean and I'm on the pill but I have some condoms in my drawer, if it makes you feel better."

Steve groans.

"Steve, I sort of need a yes or no, here."

"Yes. God, yes. Condom, please."

Georgia reaches for her bedside table and feels around for the little box that hasn't gotten any use in the last year. There's still three tucked away inside, which is good, because she has zero interest in putting on clothes and trying to find an open drugstore at midnight on Christmas Eve.

Steve has shucked his underwear, leaving him naked and kneeling on her bed. His torso is a little tanned, like he's been running at headquarters without a shirt on, but the skin under his waistline is pale, and his cock is pink with arousal.

Jesus, his cock.

Georgia drops the condom on the bed and reaches for him, wraps her hand around him. Steve's knees give out just enough so that he's sitting on his heels. She makes a big show of licking her palm and then giving him a few slow pumps.

"Been a while?" Georgia teases.

"About seventy years," he gasps.

She drags her hand over the length of him until he shifts out of her grasp. There's a moment where their limbs get entangled as they shift, and then Georgia's back on her back, Steve hovering over her. She kicks off her underwear in a truly ungraceful fashion and flings it out of the way. Her fingers seek out the condom, and she rips it open and rolls it over his cock.

"I really like you," Steve says. He's completely disheveled and out of breath, and Georgia thinks that Georgia-a-year-ago had no idea what loving Steve Rogers was really about.

"I like you too. And you can totally fuck me now."

"There's no rush," he says, even though his cock jumps on its own. "It's not every day that a ninety-year-old loses his virginity."

Georgia hums, then sticks two fingers in her mouth and drags them down to her cunt, giving herself a rub. It's not like she really needs the warm-up; she's been grinding up on him for at least half an hour, and she's positively dripping. But, by the look on Steve's face, it's still a good show.

She thinks that maybe she stops breathing for a minute when he leans over her and lines himself up. She tucks her knees up to make things easier, feels the way the head of his cock finds the right spot and sinks in.

The breathe punches back into her at the same time that he groans.

He bottoms out, and the hard plane of his pelvic bone grinds wonderfully against her clit. Her hands grab at his shoulders, then trail down his back to his ass, so it's a full-body experience when he draws back out and sinks back in.

The pace of his thrusts are slow but steady. It doesn't take him long to find a rhythm he likes, and Georgia adjusts the tilt of her hips until he hits just the right spot. She yelps underneath him, and he looks like he might stop until she curls her nails into the curve of his ass and hauls him back in.

Steve watches her face closely, and Georgia tries to keep her eyes open to watch him back, but then he hammers at her g-spot again and her eyes scrunch shut. She covers her mouth with one hand to muffle herself, because Georgia is nothing if not a shouter, and this is not the place for it. But she can feel the way her body clenches tighter and tighter the more he fucks into her, and yanks her hand from her mouth so she can bury her face in the crook of his neck when she comes.

He keeps going until her muscles loosen around him, and then Steve slows as well. "That was a good one," Georgia says, feeling loopy and languid. "You want one too? I'm game for more."

He laughs softly at her, then thrusts again. She spreads her legs in encouragement, lets herself moan a little bit when he picks up speed. She's primed now, and so her second orgasm comes a little easier and faster, and then Steve is ducking his head down and mashing his mouth against hers when his hips stutter and stall against hers.

Their mouths separate wetly, and he pushes himself back onto his heels as he withdraws from her. Steve wrangles the condom off and ties the end, and drops it into the wastebasket next to her desk. Georgia sprawls across the bed, feeling flushed and warm, and like she could sleep forever. Steve disappears into her bathroom just long enough to run some water in the sink, and some part of Georgia's mind thinks about all the super-soldier come he's washing down the drain. He comes back to the bed and manoeuvres the sheets out from underneath her, then climbs in and draws the blankets over them both.

"Worth waiting for?" she asks with a yawn.

"Absolutely," he says, then rolls them both until she's the little spoon and his nose is buried in her hair.


	4. Chapter Four

Georgia had kind of neglected to think about the morning after.

They sleep until nine, when the sun starts shining persistently through the window. Steve gets up first and puts on his clothes from the night before. Georgia watches him through half-lidded eyes, enjoying the way the muscles in his back shift and the way his lips quirk when he looks back at her over his shoulder. His shoulders stretch the fabric taut, and the wrinkles that developed from a night on the floor nearly disappear with the strain. It’s all very appealing.

She gets up and uses the bathroom, gives herself finger-guns in the mirror while she's brushing her teeth. She stops when she nearly drips foamy spit all down her front.

The plan is for her to make sure the coast is clear by casually strolling out into the living room, and then sneak Steve out to get changed in his apartment without anyone noticing.

It's a good plan, except that it's Christmas morning and everyone is gathered around the tree, ready to break into the gifts underneath.

Georgia and Steve stop dead at the sight of everyone in their pyjamas. Georgia is in yoga pants and a loose t-shirt, creeping ahead of Steve like a scout, but Steve is still all dressed up from the night before, albeit a bit rumpled, only two steps behind her. 

Pepper's eyebrows notch up.

Natasha pulls out her phone.

"No," her dad says resolutely.

"Dad," Georgia protests.

"Tony. Sir…?"

"No, that's weird too. I'm just not going to think about this anymore."

Georgia sighs, then takes Steve by the hand. "Don't start presents without us," she warns before leading him to the elevator.

***

They return in under ten minutes with minimal groping and Steve dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt of Georgia's choosing. It's a very good look for him. She gives him a wink right before the elevator doors open, just to see the way his cheeks go pink even as he winks right back.

"Clint says congratulations," Natasha says as soon as they step past the elevator doors.

"Thanks?" Steve says uncertainly.

Georgia reminds herself to text Clint a high-five gif when she's got her phone on her.

Pepper pats the empty space on the couch next to her, and Georgia sits down and then makes room for Steve, who squeezes himself into a space not quite large enough for him. For all that he’s supremely aware of his own body while he works in the field, in his downtime he seems to mentally retreat into the body of his smaller self.

Her dad plays Christmas elf, and he distributes gifts from under the tree with a Santa hat set jauntily atop his head. There's an array of expensive art supplies for Steve and the silly cufflinks for her dad. Natasha unwraps a delicate pair of earrings that compliment the arrow necklace she often wears, and Pepper beams at the plans for a miniature greenhouse to be installed on the penthouse balcony (with input from Georgia, because he had been leaning towards buying her a hobby farm upstate instead, and Pepper very much dislikes things like the smell of manure. The greenhouse was a much safer, tidier bet). Georgia gets four nights at a hotel in Switzerland, where she has three days scheduled with some of the scientists working for CERN. They’re doing some pretty interesting stuff there, and she’ll enjoy picking their brains.

Natasha gives her a bottle of good tequila, with a sly grin. She laughs when she peels back wrapping paper to find that Georgia has given her an abhorrently expensive bottle of vodka in return.

Steve hands her a flat, rectangular package that Georgia rips into with glee. She’s dated boys before, who either gave her ridiculous flamboyant gifts that were trying to make a statement, or bought her $5 garbage ‘for the novelty of it.’ She has no worries that Steve will take either direction.

But she’s also not ready to uncover a simple frame, holding a sketch done in charcoals. There, in his steady hand, he’s rendered an alarmingly good rendition of Georgia and her father in the shop. He has his welding mask pushed up so his smile is on full display, lit by the torch in his hand, and Georgia herself is seated on a countertop, one foot flat on the surface, the other dangling down, fiddling with a piece of electronics against her knee.

It’s a moment that’s happened a dozen times since Steve came into their lives. But to see it laid out like this with such care, is heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

“Jesus,” is all she can say, but her finger traces the shape of her dad’s hair over the glass. Pepper leans over her shoulder, and Georgia can practically feel the moment that Pepper falls a little bit in love with him too.

“ _Steve,_ that’s incredible,” she says, and it is. 

“It’s not much,” Steve says, somewhat apologetically, but Georgia smacks his knee to cut him off. It’s exactly the right amount of everything.

It’s even crazier knowing that he was planning on giving this to her, even before they fell into bed together the night before. She thinks that she might have gotten the idea, about his interest in her, when she unwrapped this gift, if he hadn’t already been naked in her bed.

She sets it carefully on her lap, where she can glance down at look at it again. Her gift to Steve is a small envelope, and he takes it with a shy smile at her. She watches him lift the flap and pull out the silly Christmas card. There's a little slip of paper inside that falls into hands.

He stares at it for a long while.

"I thought, you spent so much time there as a kid. And your mom worked there too, right? It'd be nice to give back to the people who kept you going strong before Howard got his hands on you."

"This says thirty thousand dollars," Steve says, voice a little thready. "To the Brooklyn Hospital."

"I think they want to upgrade some things in their Children's Health Centre. Make it nicer for the kids who get landed in there, especially long-term."

He drops the card with its glittery cat picture on the couch so he can pull her into a tight hug.

***

They manage to escape to his apartment after lunch, away from Natasha's all-seeing eyes and Pepper's watchful ones. Georgia remembers suggesting to her dad that he not decorate Steve’s new pad like it was straight from the forties, because they wouldn't get it right anyways, and that might be more distressing. She's glad she did; Steve looks perfectly at home in the modern space, fishing out two glasses from the cupboard and pouring them both some water from the tap.

"I feel a little bad that I didn't give you something tangible," Georgia says, once she's seated on a kitchen barstool, Steve leaning against the counter next to her.

"I think you gave me all the gifts you ever had to give me in that one box," Steve counters.

"Yeah, that one's pretty tricky to beat. I still feel like I should give something to you, though."

Georgia takes a final swig of water and then crouches down in front of him. Steve flounders for a second when she gets her hands on his belt, then carefully puts his glass down on the counter with a gentle _clink._

"Have you done this before?" she asks, even though she's pretty certain he hasn't. He shakes his head, eyes wide as he looks down at her. Georgia settles her knees as comfortably as she can on the hardwood floor, then flicks open his pants with a few easy movements.

He's half-hard already, and she draws him out and tucks the waistband of his underwear under his balls to keep it out of the way. With a few smooth strokes, he's nearly entirely hard, and Georgia licks her lips and takes him in.

His cock jumps in her mouth, warm and salty and a little musky with his scent. She keeps one hand on the base of his cock and the other on his thigh to keep herself balanced, then starts off slow.

Steve grips the edge of the counter with white-knuckled fingers, and he can't seem to decide if he wants to stare at her or at the ceiling. Georgia watches him as best she can from her angle, and when he meets her gaze, he keeps it. She gives him a good, long lick, then takes him down as far as she can go.

"Jesus Christ," he says. "Holy shit." She thinks the countertop might be buckling under his hands.

She keeps a steady pace with her mouth and her hand, uses plenty of tongue and only rubs her teeth against him once. His legs quiver under her palm, and she doubles down on the speed.

"Georgia. Georgia, you have to stop, you..." He gasps when she pushes down as far as she can go and just _holds._ " _Fuck._ "

She eases off and wipes delicately at the edge of her mouth. His cock is wet with her spit and only three inches away from her nose.

"Do you _want_ me to stop?"

"It's not decent," Steve says weakly. It’s also not an answer.

"It's kind of rude to only accept half your Christmas gift," Georgia chides him. "Now, you come whenever you're ready." And she sucks him back down again.

It's only because of her hand on his thigh and his palms braced on the counter that he doesn't simply collapse. He's shaking above her, the glorious Captain America reduced to gasped curse words and the pressure around his cock to hold him upright.

Georgia slides her hand down to cradle his balls, and they tighten in her hand and she turns her eyes upwards to look him in the face when his body tips over the edge.

He groans like the breath has been punched out of him, eyes wide as he watches her swallow it all down. Georgia rocks back and rubs at her mouth, then grins at him. He slumps down the sides of the cupboards and joins her on the floor, legs sprawled in front of him. His pants are undone and his cock is still hanging out, but he doesn’t make a move to rectify the situation.

"Merry Christmas, Steve," Georgia says, throwing him an exaggerated wink.

"It'll be a merry Christmas if I survive it," he jokes weakly, before his head falls back and hits the cupboard door with a thunk. "I think I'm halfway to dead already."

"Come on, let's have a midday Christmas nap. I want to see if Captain America sleeps on flags instead of sheets."

They heave themselves off the kitchen floor and toddle to his bedroom, where he has perfectly normal white sheets, and they fall into bed for a nap.

***

"I appreciate the donation to the hospital, honestly. But maybe no more expensive gifts, for a while, okay?"

The nap was really only forty minutes long, but they haven't gotten out of bed yet, content to twine their legs together under the blankets.

"How about more of the other kind?"

"As long as you let me return the favour."

Georgia hums contentedly. It's not a difficult agreement to make.

***

By the time New Year's rolls around, Georgia and Steve have settled into a nice pattern of going for leisurely morning walks in snowy Manhattan, followed by extra hot lattes and cuddling under the heavy blanket he keeps on his couch. Steve ducks out for a few hours in the afternoon to train in the gym, and Georgia sometimes follows to watch the way his body moves, the way his ass clenches and his biceps swell when his fists lash out to punch at the bag. And then they work out their sexual frustration in his bed, on his couch, and in his shower.

It's a good pattern. Georgia wholly approves.

They kiss at midnight when the ball drops, which is streaming on the television but can be seen from the window if she squints, and her dad only makes a little bit of noise about it.

(He mentions, once, while they're in the workshop, that he can't remember the last time she seemed so light-hearted. "I don't think any of us realized how lonely you were."

"It's not just Steve. I like hanging out with Natasha too, even when she's telling terrifying stories that are not nearly as endearing as she thinks they are."

"A best friend and a boyfriend. My little girl, all grown up."

"Oh my god, _dad._ ")

But the midnight kiss also means that she only has three more days until she's due back at school, and Steve and Natasha will drop her off on their way back to headquarters. It's back to phone calls and Skype conversations, just when Steve is starting to settle into his body and learn hers too.

They're holding mittened hands and walking past the Bethesda Fountain, where plenty of tourists are taking selfies and not paying attention to their surroundings. Both Georgia and Steve are famous in their own rights, but there's something about hiding in plain sight in New York that just seems to work. They find an empty bench and settle in, letting their breath fog in front of their faces as they sit and admire the view.

"So, if you're in charge of the Avengers, how often can you give yourself weekend leave?"

"I'm not in charge of the Avengers," Steve protests.

"Nick Fury is totally MIA, and Hill is working for my dad. I'm pretty sure you run the Avengers."

"I don't want to know how you know about Fury."

"Well, you know,” she says, gesturing airily at herself. “Stark." They do have a history of poking for information in places where they’re not entirely wanted.

"Well, not every weekend, that's for sure. But maybe there's a train that runs to one of the nearby towns. We can send one of the junior agents out on an escort mission for practice. They'll hate it."

"I'm not sure I like being the guinea pig for the baby agents, and hardly anyone takes the _train_ to get anywhere, anymore," Georgia says, but she's grinning at him as she leans in for a kiss.

***

They fuck four more times in the two days before it's time for them to board the Quinjet and leave Manhattan. The air is crisp and cold but the skies are clear, and it's an easy flight back to Cambridge. Natasha doesn't say goodbye so much as she exaggeratedly gives them privacy by refusing to leave the cockpit.

Which is probably for the best, because Georgia finds herself pinned against the length of Steve's body, engaging in some truly messy, desperate making out. She's just starting to sneak her cold hands under his shirt when Natasha _ahems_ from a few feet away.

They lurch away from each other, but Georgia keeps her grip on one of his arms, and Steve grins unabashedly at Natasha.

"Get out of here before Cap decides to abandon the Avengers and live as your kept boy until you finish your degree," she says, but there's humour in the way she rolls her eyes to the ceiling, and Georgia laughs before landing one last kiss on his mouth.

She watches the Quinjet lift off from the runway, arm fully extended over her head so she can wave at them as they shrink into nothingness.

***

Most of the time, she only hears about Avengers missions after they're over, or she'll get a quick text from Steve saying that he's going to be off the grid for a few days, and he'll message her again when he's back. For all that there's sometimes big, flashy missions where the entire world knows that the Avengers are on patrol, the majority of their work is done under the radar with no media attention.

Sometimes she thinks it’s better when she doesn’t know he’s working, because a corner of her mind never lets her forget that he could be out there, getting kicked or shot at or any number of terrible things, until she hears word that he’s safe home.

Sometimes Steve calls her the moment he steps foot back on the Quinjet, his face still streaked with dirt and blood that's been hastily wiped away with the back of his hand. Occasionally, it's not until he's back at headquarters, in which case he typically calls her from a white hospital bed, looking irritated with himself and the bandages that wrap around his body.

And in the midst of her workload at school, and the few times she visits home or travels to headquarters to see Steve and Natasha, Georgia is suddenly aware that the leaves are fully sprouted on the tree outside her window, and it's nearly time for exams.

And it's not until she walks out of her last exam and boots up her phone that she gets a barrage of email notifications from the people she least likes talking to.

Reporters.

Georgia swipes past all of them and dials her dad's number.

"Georgie!" her dad says, sounding positively cheerful. Well, that has to be a good sign. She thinks.

She's still power-walking back to her apartment in case she needs to pack her bags and get to either Manhattan or headquarters ASAP.

"What's going on?" she asks, wary despite his tone.

"Ah, yes. Did Steve call you?"

"No idea. I have about..." She checks. "Forty emails and twice as many missed calls."

"Not bad," he says, like it's some sort of competition that he's still winning.

" _Dad._ "

"There was a little firefight that a couple reporters caught on camera. And then you know how they are, throwing out every question under the sun hoping that one of them sticks."

"You're really not making me feel any better about where this might be going."

"One of them asked Cap about his relationship status."

"Oh." Her steps falter, and Georgia slows to a stop. Her feet stumble her over to a nearby bench along the quiet pathway, and she lets herself drop onto it. "Okay."

"I don't like the way you sound right now," her dad says. She can almost picture him putting on the armour to fight her intangible demons. "What's wrong?"

"What did he say?"

"You don't...? There's a video. It's pretty much exploded online."

Georgia drops her head into her hand and rubs the spot over her eyebrows that's just started aching. "That's not an answer."

"Look, go watch it. I'm pretty sure you're sulking for no reason. Although you might get some brutal hate mail for a little while. People hate hearing that their imaginary boyfriends are off the market, for some reason. You should’ve seen the stuff people threw at Pepper, a few years back.”

And then he hangs up on her.

Georgia glares at her phone for a second, then pulls up YouTube and doesn't even have to search for anything. It's just right there on the Trending home page.

_Captain America declares love for Stark heiress!_

***

Georgia has the good sense to get herself back to her apartment before she tries calling Steve.

He doesn't pick up.

She puts her phone down and paces the length of the living room, gnawing on the edge of her thumb for precisely eight minutes before she grabs her phone and tries again. It rings and rings and drops off without going to voicemail.

She sits down on the couch, then stands back up again. Georgia flips her phone in slow half-circles that land loudly in her palm; wants to put it down and walk away but doesn't think she could if she tried.

There is a quick, silent debate with herself before she pulls up the news. Buzzfeed has already dug up the only other published photo that they're both in together, the kind where it just happens that they're both in the same place at the same time with the same group of people, and not an actual photo they purposefully took together.

The internet would probably kill for the little bundle of selfies that she's snapped with Steve over the last couple months. He always grins that adorable grin in them, and photo-Georgia always looks immensely pleased with herself.

Natasha says they’re positively sickening, but she also has taken Georgia’s phone from her hand and made them take a handful of ‘proper’ photos that aren’t just selfies, so Georgia doesn’t entirely believe her.

Everyone online is already speculating. Steve has a Twitter account that he hardly ever uses, except to retweet about social and political things he considers worthy of attention, and the occasional adorable dog picture because he obviously wants one but doesn’t have the time, but he hasn't made any sort of official statement there yet.

Georgia has very little interest in checking her own various social media accounts at this particular moment. Her notifications are definitely completely out of control. She reads about three comments before she closes Twitter, and doesn’t even bother touching Instagram.

She picks up her phone, sets it down, pats Ada distractedly on the head when her cat comes 'round to find out why her human is restless. Georgia is so lost in her own head that she fully yelps when there's a frantic knock on the door.

She grabs her phone again, finger hovering over the ‘emergency call’ button. Georgia creeps over to the door on light feet, and leans forward to peer through the peephole. Steve is standing on the other side, hands braced against the frame, head hanging just a little while he catches his breath.

Georgia swings the door wide open on him, and he nearly trips as he's suddenly forced to catch his balance. "Did you _run_ all the way here from upstate?"

"Ha," he says, but it's breathless and not a 'no.' "From the airport?"

"Jesus Christ," Georgia says, because the airport is altogether too far away to even consider the fact. "Did you forget that we have phones in this millennium?" She waves hers at him.

"Didn't seem right for you to find out that I love you from YouTube, or a reporter. I wanted to tell you myself. Face to face."

"It was kind of my dad who clued me in, so-" She bursts into laughter when Steve growls and hooks her around the waist. He slams the door shut with his free hand, then manhandles her into the bedroom and drops her across her covers.

She hooks her calves around his waist and hauls him in close to her body. "I love you too," she says, face tucked into the crook of his neck, even though she's certain that he already knows.

Their mouths are hot against each other, and Georgia rucks up the back of his shirt to get her hands on his skin. He's damp with sweat, but only because he literally ran from the airport instead of hailing a cab like a normal human being, and it's a huge fucking turn-on. She pants into his mouth when his hand dips under the waistband of her jeans, fingers strong against the curve of her ass.

There's barely enough space between them to lower zippers and shrug off clothes, but Georgia promptly finds herself naked in the eye of a wardrobe hurricane. It's only late afternoon and she was expecting to spend the rest of her day and most of the night burning through an entire season of The Mindy Project and maybe a pint of ice cream, but _this_ is so much better.

Steve ducks down to kiss her stomach, and the little birthmark that adorns her right hip. Helpfully, Georgia props up her knees and lets them fall open, and he wiggles down into the available space. His breath is warm as it ghosts across her skin, but his tongue is scorching hot when he full-on kisses her on her pussy.

"Oh, yeah," Georgia groans, tipping her head back even as she works her fingers into his hair. Her knees splay a little further, and Steve takes his cue to go to town.

Steven Grant Rogers is very passionate about civil rights and uplifting the downtrodden and also a true proponent of giving really amazing head.

Georgia clamps a hand over her mouth and tries to choke back the noises that threaten to erupt, which mostly means her squeals are half-muffled instead of at full volume. He meets her gaze from the crux of her thighs, and she can't see his mouth, but the corners of his eyes crinkle like he's grinning his dirtiest grin at her.

"Holy shit, this is hardly fair," Georgia says. It's not a whimper, or a sigh, just a fully truthful statement made while she's completely out of her mind. "I can't... you're way too hot and incredible to be mine, I feel like I might've landed you by accident and now you feel obligated or something, because this _cannot_ be how this ends for me."

"How it ends?" Steve's voice is low and Georgia is certain she can feel it rumble through her body. "I've hardly started with you, yet."

If he were any other guy, Georgia would roll her eyes at him and then he'd come five minutes later and "hardly started" would become "nearly over." But Steve buckles down and makes her come on his tongue twice in rapid succession before he pushes up to his knees and looks down at her, grinning wildly.

"Shut up," she says, even though he hasn't said a word. "Shut up and put a condom on, already."

Her limbs are weak, and she watches him fish through her bedside table drawer before pulling out a little square packet. He rips it open with his teeth and rolls the condom down over his cock. Georgia gives her cunt a soft little rub; she's warm and wet and god, is she ready for more.

He lines himself up and sinks right in, and they groan in unison. There's a slight pause while Steve hikes her legs up, his hands under her knees while he readjusts, and then he drops one hand down beside her head and _thrusts._

Georgia yelps, her hands flying up to brace against the headboard, and she's both laughing delightedly and near crying with pleasure at the way his hips buck hard into hers. Her elbows buckle after a while, her arms too tired to hold up against the stamina of an engineered supersoldier's ability to fuck, and her body slides another few inches up the bed. Steve is leaning over her, blonde hair gone dark with sweat. He's the most gorgeous thing she's ever seen, and she tells him so.

"I'm just some lughead who got lucky in a lab, once," Steve gasps. "But if this body makes you happy, then god, I'm glad to have it too."

Georgia pushes herself up onto her elbows and wraps her arms around his neck. It's kind of an awkward position, but it lets her kiss him as much as she wants without him slowing his pace at all. All the bouncing is a little uncomfortable for her tits, but she just presses them against his chest and the friction on her nipples is glorious.

"I think you'd be gorgeous no matter what," she says in his ear, and Steve's hips stutter and then push hard into her, his hands clenching tight on her hips, and Georgia can feel his breath stop when he comes.

And then he lets out a long exhale, and lowers her back down on the rumpled sheets. He pulls out of her with a wet noise, and after he's disposed of the condom, Georgia drags the blankets up over them.

"I love you," she says into the quiet, and before he can say it back, she continues. "You. Not this body and not Captain America, but _you._ I like how you sketch when you think no one's watching but pretend like it’s nothing, and how you're willing to try anything twice. I like that you see me."

"I see you," Steve murmurs, and wraps her up into the warm embrace of his perfectly-engineered biceps.

Georgia thinks it's maybe lucky that her grandfather isn't alive anymore. It might be awkward if she had to thank him for designing the perfect body for her perfect boyfriend.

***

She wakes up when it's dark, because she has to pee and also, she's kind of hungry. Steve is nestled deep in the blankets, eyes closed and breathing steady. Georgia creeps out of the room to use the toilet, and then rummages around in the kitchen until she digs up a bag of chips, a block of cheese, and a knife.

Steve wakes up when she prods at his shoulder, and then quirks an eyebrow when he observes her makeshift picnic. "Sour cream and onion, and gouda?"

"Keep your judgement to yourself, or I won't share my meal with you," Georgia says.

They finish the chips and the cheese in record time, and then share oniony kisses under the covers. Georgia rolls over to fit her back to his front, and guides Steve's hand down to between her legs, where he massages her until she's wet again. She stays on her side, props one foot up on the outside of his knee, and arches her back to pop her ass out towards him.

“It’s maybe a good thing I have this body, after all. I’m not sure I could have kept up with you, before the serum.”

Georgia tosses him a saucy grin over her shoulder, then reaches down behind her back, following the pathway of his abs down to his cock. She gives him a few slow pumps, then angles her hips to take him in. One of his arms is caught beneath her head, but his free hand clutches onto her thigh.

"Condom," he says, even as his hips jerk reflexively a little deeper into her.

"You know I'm on the pill," Georgia says. She clenches her cunt around the head of his cock, enjoying the way Steve's breath comes harder against the back of her neck. "We'll just have to take a shower afterward, is all. Fuck me, Steve."

The hand on her leg tightens momentarily, and then he _leans_ into her, pressing himself slowly and surely into her body. Georgia thinks the air has been punched straight out of her.

It's quieter sex, this time around, but Georgia thinks that Steve is only barely holding back all the things he really wants to say. There's so much she wants to say too, but she's finding it rather difficult to string a complete coherent sentence together when he's rocking into her with that unshakably steady pace.

"Steve," Georgia moans. His hand slides up her leg and back to her clit, and her voice pitches up in response. "Steve!"

She comes on his cock, nothing between her sudden flood of dampness and his skin. "Fuck, Georgia," he groans. "Fuck, can you do it again?"

"Make me," she says.

He makes her.

Her mouth is dry from panting by the time he comes, adding to the mess that's already streaking the insides of her thighs. When he pulls out this time, it's followed by a gush of their shared come.

Georgia makes sure that he's watching when she drags her fingers through the mess, then pushes the gathered fluid back into her pussy.

Steve drags her on top of him, and proceeds to kiss her rather thoroughly.

***

They spend a full twenty-four hours in her apartment, until she's too sore to fuck anymore, and Steve's eaten most of her emergency provisions. They both agree to check their online presences at the same time, and then rather quickly sign right back off.

Leaving the apartment turns out to be out of the question as well, because a good dozen Manhattan reporters have shown up in Boston and are camped out at the front of her building. Good lord, Georgia hopes that they don't track down the person who lives in the apartment below her, because she doesn't really want the world to know exactly how loudly she can holler when Steve's between her legs.

But they can't reasonably hide out in her apartment forever, and so Georgia spends an hour in front of the bathroom mirror, heating loose curls in her hair so that it falls around her shoulders, beautiful and suggestive. Steve leans against the doorframe and watches her drag liquid liner over her lids, flicking the ends out into wicked points.

"I used to watch the USO girls do their makeup," Steve says. "And I always thought it was fascinating, how they made themselves look so different, but they wore their makeup even when they weren't working. You don't."

"Wear makeup in the shop?" Georgia asks, swirling a brush into her bronzer. "What's the point? Besides, doing the whole thing takes a lot of time, and I'd rather spend it working on something productive. Did you know that we've had some really great breakthroughs with the arc reactor? The legislation around it has been a pain, but we've managed to make some changes that should make it easier to start putting into place commercially." She catches sight of his mouth, quirked up on one side. "What?"

"I don't think I ever met a girl quite like you, in the forties. Even the girls who worked in the factories during the war were only proud because they were helping with the war effort. I mean, maybe some of them liked the work, but it wasn't their passion. But you, you'd be much happier if you could be welding something instead of having to smile at all these reporters, wouldn't you?"

"Well, I get to hold your hand while I smile at them, so it's not all bad."

Steve leans in and carefully presses a kiss to her mouth. She still has to wipe a trace of ruby red away from his lips when he pulls away.

They go to get groceries.

***

Steve sticks around long enough for Georgia to finish her last bit of work before she can head back to Manhattan for a few weeks. He seems content enough to let her dive into her work for hours at a time, especially when he's sprawled over her couch with a book in hand. He still goes for his early-morning runs that Georgia sleeps through, but she banishes him to the bedroom when he feels the need to do five hundred shirtless push-ups, because she's trying to _focus_ , goddammit.

The day after she's handed in her last paper, they're on the Stark jet and heading back to Manhattan. Georgia has spent hours on the phone with Pepper and the family's PR rep, trying to decide how they're going to approach the issue of their first official public appearance.

It has to be something simple but earnest. Not a visit to Burger King, but not the Met Gala either. It was Steve who suggested that they go to that sushi place they've visited a few times already, but instead of slipping out the back door, walk straight out the front when they’re done.

So they have a date scheduled for Tuesday night, which is a statement in itself. Steve isn't just a Friday night fling. After Steve's big declaration on national television, they have to tread carefully.

Pepper had spoken to Georgia one-on-one at the end of that phone conversation, voice quiet but steady like she was trying not to offend her. "I probably don't need to tell you this, but this can't be a flash in the pan."

"I know. And it's not."

"It would be one thing if you'd been spotted holding hands in public, but Steve has said some pretty serious stuff. If it looks like you don’t take it as seriously..."

Georgia had checked to make sure that Steve was well out of earshot, but still lowered her voice. "I think this could be a forever sort of thing," she admitted. Pepper let out a heavy breath.

"I hope so," she said. "For a lot of reasons, your happiness key among them. Okay, then we have a plan."

The plan that had them on a plane back to Stark Tower, first photo op scheduled in for Tuesday night. She had texted Natasha to keep her updated on the whole situation, and although she hadn't said anything outright, Georgia got the impression that Natasha was going to mysteriously find herself in New York just in time to spy on their date from a distance.

Georgia thought perhaps she was getting too used to having superheroes for friends.

Once the plane landed, they were hustled into a car with deeply tinted windows, and straight to Stark Tower. Her father had been watching the cameras, or had FRIDAY watching them, at least, because he was standing in the foyer when the elevator doors open, arms crossed and looking foreboding.

"Come off it," Georgia said, winding her arms around his waist, catching his own arms between them. "Steve could take you in a fight."

"Only when I'm not in my suit!" her dad says, outraged. "But yeah, hurting her," he says towards Steve, who looks faintly alarmed. "Don't do it."

"Very threatening, dad," Georgia says soothingly. He caves and hugs her back, then shakes Steve's hand very formally. Steve nods back seriously, and it's all a bit too macho for Georgia's taste.

"So," Tony says, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Do we need to air out Steve's apartment again, or is he just moving into the penthouse with us?"

"Dad!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue to follow! Sorry for the delay on this chapter; I had it written ages ago but wasn't fully satisfied with it, and finally went back and made some edits that I think bring it more into line with what I wanted. Comments and kudos always make my day!!


	5. Epilogue

Steve’s dorm in the Avengers facility isn’t anything special, and frankly kept a little cold considering its inhabitant once spent 70 years encased in ice, but it’s hard to stay indignant about it when she’s curled up against him, moonlight shining through the bulletproof glass window and casting long shadows across the bed.

There’s something about the dark that makes it easier to talk honestly. It’s the same thing that gave Georgia to courage to lean across the empty expanse of the middle of her bed in Cambridge, to press a kiss to Steve’s mouth for the very first time. This time, it’s Steve who exhales heavily into her hair.

“I need to tell you something about DC,” he says, and she’s about to quip something light-hearted when she realizes that he’s quite serious.

“Tell me.”

He twines a bit of her hair around his finger, wrapping it tight before letting it go. “The Winter Soldier… I knew who he was.”

Georgia wants to pull away, wants to turn on a light and look at his face closely, but she thinks he might shut up and never say anything again, if she does. “No one knows who the Winter Soldier is,” she says carefully. "Nat says he's like a ghost story," and absolutely she trusts Nat's judgement on matters like this.

“It’s Bucky.”

She can’t even stop herself this time. Georgia rockets upright, and stares down at Steve, who is laying perfectly still. “ _Bucky Barnes_ is the _Winter Soldier._ ” She closes her eyes and presses one palm to her face, then lets it fall into her lap. “How? _Why?_ That doesn’t make any sense!”

“We think he survived the fall, during the war. Russians must’ve found him. We couldn’t figure out why he lived; that fall should’ve killed anyone. _Half_ that fall should’ve killed anyone. But then Natasha reasoned that the only person she knew who could’ve walked away on the other side was me.”

Georgia shakes her head, even as her brain pieces the puzzle together for her. “The serum. He got the serum. But Erskine...?”

“A different version, we think. That Hydra gave him, when he was imprisoned at Azzano. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“But he’d be nearly a hundred!” Steve opens his mouth to reply, but she beats him to it. “They iced him, didn’t they?” She doesn’t need Steve to confirm it; she can read it all over his face.

“I need you to know,” he says quietly. “Because I’m going to start looking for him.”

“Steve.” Georgia leans forward to press her hand to his bicep. “He tried to kill you last time. He nearly beat you to death. You almost drowned. It’s not safe.”

“He would do the same for me,” Steve says stubbornly.

“He’s dangerous.” There are tears gathering in her eyes, and a lump growing in her throat. This isn’t like any other mission, where there is a bad guy that Steve is going to punch until the bad guy can’t punch back anymore. Bucky is his best friend, the last remaining part of his life in 1940s Brooklyn, and that makes him far more terrifying than any other gun-toting maniac.

Steve shakes his head. “He’s alone, and I have to bring him home.”

Georgia sits and looks at him for a long while. His face is steady, but resigned.

She slumps over and tucks her body up against his. He’s solid and warm, and his hands come tentatively over her sides and travel up her back. “You’ll need intel,” she says finally. His arms tighten around her, just a little bit. “And SHIELD isn’t around to do that for you, anymore. How were you planning to do it, just head out into the world and wing it?”

“Natasha thinks she has some ideas, and Sam is coming with.”

“That is not even remotely close to a plan.”

He scrunches his nose at her. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Can you wait, just a few days? Just long enough for me to talk to Nat, and do some digging of my own.”

Steve noses into her hair, his breath skating over the top of her head. “Thank you,” he says.

He falls asleep beside her, but Georgia lays in his bed and stares at the ceiling for hours before she finally succumbs to exhaustion.

***

There isn’t a lot to find, even with the data dump that Nat dropped online. Georgia parses it all for anything that might be useful, utilizing the massive computers at Stark Industries to look through everything a thousand times faster than any one person ought to be able to manage on their own.

She watches satellite feeds and combs social media, and there’s nothing to see, until there’s the suggestion of a hint.

“It could be nothing,” she warns, but Steve leans down and presses his mouth against hers. She’s got a paper file, the only copy, clenched in her hands between them; there will be no digital copies to be found by someone else.

“Even if it leads to nothing, thank you for trying,” he says, retreating just far enough that she can look up into those blue eyes. “I know it’s been a lot to ask, but… thank you.”

_‘You’re welcome’_ gets caught in her throat, and so Georgia grabs him by the collar and drags him back down again instead.

Once his mouth is swollen from her kisses, Steve unwinds one arm from around her waist to reach into his pocket. “Here,” he says, pushing the small, round object into her palm. “Keep this safe for me.”

She doesn’t even have to look down to know what’s held tight in her hand. “I will, if you keep yourself safe for me.”

***

Georgia hasn't been with Steve all the time during their months of dating, due to their mutual busy schedules (her studies and his saving-the-world thing), and he’s often out on missions when they’re apart, but it’s never felt quite how it feels now.

The easiest thing to do it throw herself into her work, because too much idle time leaves Georgia wondering if he’s found Bucky yet, if Bucky has raised his gun and unflinchingly shot his best friend, if Steve let him because he couldn’t bring himself to raise a hand against the man who stood by them all through their childhoods.

She wants to follow him digitally, to know where he is and what he’s been doing, if he’s physically okay (because she knows that he’s not okay, emotionally), but Steve had asked her not to.

“Focus on your degree,” he said, faux-stern but entirely genuinely. “It’ll take us a while, and I don’t want you staying up late and worrying the whole time.”

Which was easy enough to say, and much harder to actually accomplish.

Nat has fallen out of touch as well, which is difficult to swallow but entirely for the best. Georgia doesn’t want to put her friend in a position where she feels obligated to talk about the things that Steve obviously doesn’t want to talk about right now, and even if she never brought it up, he would always be hovering behind the words she could say. Georgia keeps a note of all the things she wishes she could share with Nat, the silly jokes and keen observations that she thinks she’d like, and stores them up for when they get back home.

***  
Georgia fiddles with the old, simple gold ring that's hung on a chain around her neck, a nervous tick that she's only picked up recently. The ring is warm between her fingertips, and she lets it fall back into her cleavage where she's been keeping it safe for him for the last month.

He reached out to her only a few days previous, looking for information that Nat couldn’t dig up on her own. He’d stayed on the line with her while she dove headfirst through firewalls and found the intel he wanted.

He says ‘I miss you’ at least four times, and Georgia says it back every time. 

He tells her that he’s alright, that they haven’t come in close contact with Bucky yet, and he’s been managing to sleep reasonably well in the hotels they’re staying in.

Every word down the line is like a balm to her heart, and she wants to tell him everything that’s been going on, but also doesn’t want to hear him stop talking anytime soon.

But eventually, she comes across the piece of information he’s been looking for.

"There's some vague evidence that Rumlow has been laying low in Lagos.”

"Rumlow," Steve says, irritated at the very thought of him. "I'll be glad when he's finally out of our hair."

“And I think I might have another lead on your friend,” she says, quietly and carefully.

Steve breathes steadily into her ear. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll send it to Nat; she’ll know which encryption I’ve used. Handle Rumlow and get Bucky, and then get back as soon as you can. I got you a present."

"You didn't have to," Steve says. She knows he's thinking about that first extravagant gift, the one he'll never be able to return the favour for.

"Oh, I wanted to." Georgia pulls the phone away from her ear, and pokes at the screen. "Here, I've sent you a teaser."

There's a moment where Steve's phone must buzz in his hand, and he checks his messages to find the photo she's sent.

"Georgia," he hisses into the phone, scandalized. "The internet says you're not supposed to send that sort of thing, for privacy."

"Oh, please, like I can't properly encrypt something over a secure connection."

"...It is a very nice colour."

"Right?" The lingerie set she picked up, Steve in mind, is a bit more feminine than she normally prefers, but she thinks he'll appreciate the pale pink lace against her skin.

"I'll be home soon. I love you," Steve says.

"I love you, too. Now get back here so I can do all sorts of awful things to you."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve says, snappy and eager.

Georgia makes kissy noises down the line at him and then hangs up the phone, feeling infinitely better than she has in days. Maybe Steve hasn't put two and two together yet, but it’ll be July 4th in only a couple of weeks, and she's got a great idea for his birthday present this year.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Camila Cabello's "Into It."
> 
> Fic has been finished. I should be posting a new chapter every few days.


End file.
